The Vintage Crimes of Christopher Sly
by Antje
Summary: Team Psych stumbles upon a mystery that leads to the seedy characters of Santa Barbara's past. Sequel to Apply Liberally at Sunrise. Abandoned work; see note ch 14. Read at your own risk. SS/CL. BG/JoH.
1. Chapter of Change

**The Vintage Crimes of Christopher Sly**

Fandom: Psych (post-series; rather like "Season 8")  
>CharactersPairings: Shawn x Carlton (nine weeks young); Gus x Juliet (married three months); also has a bunch of original characters, some which were in my other Psych story.  
>Rating: Good for people over the age of fifteen, for there are swear words. Just don't repeat them to your elders.<br>Notes and Things: Takes place two months after the end of my previous effort, _Apply Liberally at Sunrise_. (Except shorter than that one.) And you should probably read it before reading this one. I'd tell you the plot, but the title does a pretty good job of summing it up. Readers were so awesome to me about "ALAS" that I thought I'd keep writing Psych stories while it made me happy and pleased a bunch of people. Thanks for the support! There will likely be another "Reference list of references" to read at the end of the story.  
>Disclaimer: Psych is owned by NBC Universal Television and several other production companies, none of which I am affiliated with.<p>

-x-

**1991**

A battered, spine-taped, library-bound copy of Shakespeare rests on the front porch handrail. The young hand, the sort that belongs neither to a boy nor a man—just that awkward stage between—tentatively pries it from its position. The pages are flipped and eagerly scanned. Eagerness turns to impatience, impatience turns to frustration.

"Gus," Shawn says, voice muffled in the book "I forget where we left off. What scene are we doing?" Abject horror rushes into Shawn's expressive face. "Please, not the kissing scene."

Gus denotes calculated thought—always does when he needs to reassure Shawn Spencer. They are nearly fifteen—fifteen!—and Gus thinks it's time that they stop pretending that kissing is such a bad duty for the male population to perform upon the nebulous amount of females just waiting for their charms.

All contemplation of sympathy is lost when the screen door opens, and out flies Henry Spencer, Shawn's helplessly helpful father. He is half-dressed for his detective duties, in a tan suit but no tie. His eyes, some days more benevolent than others, ensnare every noteworthy piece of information his son and his son's best friend provide. He sees two school-labeled copies of _Romeo and Juliet_. "Tryouts for the school play this week?"

"School play?" shrieks Gus. He had no trouble performing in front of a live student audience when he was younger, but at that point in his life he would much rather avoid humiliation. Being Shawn Spencer's friend, however, certainly accrues enough mortification. "No, no way, Mr. Spencer!" His voice croaks, his eyes dry, his bottom lip stiffens—all noteworthy signs of impending panic.

"This is just for English class," Shawn says, drawing attention away from Gus. "Mr. Evrington is making us learn some scenes off by rote. To do that, he's assigning a scene to our group." There. Explanation enough. Surely that would satisfy Dad and _make him go away_.

"Good, good," he starts, and Shawn knows what's coming. Dad has a way of doing that, grumbling words indifferently that lead to another thought, usually a statement that starts with a pronoun, like "I."

"I love Shakespeare," says Henry.

Shawn believes that Dad believes he's telling the truth. Dad really wants to think he loves Shakespeare. "You can't come to class and watch our scene, sorry."

"Did you know," Henry goes on, aware of Shawn's intrusion but ignoring it, "in Shakespeare's day, all the parts were played by men?"

This, Shawn thinks, is to get back at him for the snappy comment.

"Ew," Gus spurts, complete with disgusted intensity. "But there are people kissing! That's gross."

Shawn stares ambivalently into his copy of _Romeo and Juliet_. "There's really only one kiss. Unless the director decides to show affection of the characters between dialog, but somehow I don't think so. Goodbye, Dad, thanks for the tip. If Gus has to kiss anyone, I'll make sure he's wearing cherry lip balm. Ow!" Gus had stepped on his foot. "What? You like the cherry lip balm. It's better than the mint."

Henry inhales, deeply, soundlessly, amused by the boys' antics, as he'd been for almost ten years—and slightly alarmed as well. He tries to give Shawn a truce. "I'll have your mom bring you guys some lemonade." And, without waiting to hear if they wanted any, they would have some even if they didn't, Henry vanishes inside.

Gus is involved in a heavy scrutiny of the scene's text. He understands the nuances and the complexity of the piece, but underneath it all there's just an old-fashioned love story. Still… "I'm glad Mr. Evrington isn't making anyone do the kissing scene. I'm glad we didn't live in Shakespeare's time."

"Gus, don't be an overgrown ear hair," chides Shawn, tossing the damnable book to the grass, and then flops down beside it. "Shakespeare lived, like, eight hundred years ago."

Gus, exasperated, sits. Picking up Shawn's copy, their scene is already marked, in graphite, with various notes, and little marks between certain words that indicate a good place to take a breath. He couldn't believe—and then he grew a little smarter by coming to believe it—that Shawn had defaced school property. "Uh, Shawn, I'm pretty sure he was born in 1564."

"Yeah. Right. Eight hundred years ago. Isn't that what I said? Maybe guys did a lot more kissing back then."

"You're only saying that because you want me to forget what I saw you doing to Jamie Brothgate at his party last weekend."

Shawn remains perfectly placid, though, after a fleeting second, grabs his book back from Gus, thus impeding any vocalized reprimand regarding the pencil marks. "Yeah, well, he had something in his teeth. I can't help that you saw it from a different perspective."

"There's nothing wrong with my perspective."

"Do you even know what a perspective is?"

"There's nothing wrong with my eyes, Shawn. Just—"

"Just what?"

"Just promise me I'll never have to see you in a dress."

Something about the line strikes humor into Shawn. He smiles, takes up the book again, and imagines his dad trying to get him to answer one of those "how many" questions. "How many drag queens are in the room, Shawn?" Like that, you know, as a "for instance."

-x-

**1.**  
><em>BIANCA: The taming school? What, is there such a place?<br>TRANIO: Ay, mistress, and Petruchio is the master,  
>That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long<em>  
><em>To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue<em>.  
>- Act IV.2 -<p>

Burton Guster stood in a back yard that had, through the last year, become a lot more familiar than the playground of the Spencers' front yard of bygone youth. In his hand, a lightweight, white cardboard file box, not filled with files, but some of Shawn's socks, a couple of his shirts, and a little cactus plant named Jeanine. In front of him, Carlton Lassiter's house, the back patio and kitchen door area of it. A quaint 1950's bungalow with the California-staple terra cotta tile roof, stucco exterior, and lots of square windows accessorized by terra cotta colored shutters. The landscaping was lush and nice, many birds-of-paradise, and Shawn's favorite dwarf lemon tree, and his least favorite knurled arborvitae before the paling that hid the neighbor's yard. Though the place was firmly Lassiter's, through a screwy period of unrelated events—along with Lassiter's temper—Shawn had picked the place out.

"Never in all my life, Gus, and this is the honest truth," Shawn had said last night, when the two old best friends, now on "the long side" of their middle-thirties and cowardly staring "40" in the face, were up past midnight packing boxes, "never, ever did I think I'd actually live _in_ that house when it and I first crossed each other's paths."

But there they were, the four of them—it always was the four of them, as Gus heard Juliet making a rustle of garbage bags by the Echo—moving Shawn into a house. A house. With four walls. A front door. A back door a bit arthritic on damp Santa Barbara mornings. A claw-foot bathtub. A dining room. Two bedrooms. One of them used as a guest room. Gus gulped—hard. It was there. Coming. A bit of fear. A dash of melancholy. And—oh, gosh—not yet.

"Gus?" Juliet had seen such an expression on him before, usually when he trying to keep his gag reflex in check. She took hold of his arm and pressed warmly. "Are you all right?" She heard a whine that transformed into babyish sobbing when he let his head fall on her shoulder, the box dropped between their feet. She held him close, allowing him to weep with dignity—for now. She was not entirely positive that some connubial teasing wouldn't come later.

"It's just that he's not my best friend any more…" Gus, to be fair, did hurt deep down inside. It was that sacred place where he shoved things that he didn't want to deal with immediately. Nine times out of ten, these things he didn't want to deal with involved Shawn: How to tell him that he had a secret girlfriend (half a superhero at that!) named Juliet, and how to tell him they were engaged—and now—now! Well, not much in the world that had come his way had really prepared him for the day Shawn Spencer would voluntarily move into someone else's house. "Houses aren't really his thing, Jules."

She thought this made sense. Didn't it? He'd talked about it before, while she filed her nails in bed and he read non-fiction books on personal finance, and all was cozy and nice. They did their best talking about Shawn—sometimes Carlton—sometimes Shawn and Carlton together—in the late night hours before sleep. "I know they aren't, baby, but, hey," she let him go, straightened, giving her optimistic look that sent a portion of his pain away, "it's a new and improved Shawn we're working with. See!" She pinched the cuff of his purple shirt and pointed to the view.

Framed in the screen door were Shawn and Carlton, the latter looking up into the face of the former. It was nice to see Shawn with his guard down, during those rare instances when he thought no one noticed, or just when Carlton happened to be the only person in the world right then. His appearance softened, and, to Juliet, he had allowed himself to become vulnerable. It was funny that she applied these thoughts to Shawn and not to Carlton, whose changes tended to be inward and unseen. Carlton adhered to his staunch professionalism, and only when it was the four of them together in a casual, non-office, non-work setting, did he ever exhibit any affection toward Shawn. Juliet still thought the whole situation so delightful that it brought her spasms of laughter. Carlton, who'd once said that all romantic entanglements end in despair, "but," he'd told her when she'd asked him about it, "what happens when it starts off with despair? Good things, right? It has to be good things." It was true that his relationship with Shawn had started off with a decent dollop of despair—and misery, and revulsion, and enmity.

Carlton must have said something funny, since Shawn laughed and kissed him for it. Gus's eyes welled up again and he sniffled. Juliet stooped to gather the dropped box, and put little Jeanine back inside, as apparently she'd popped out at impact.

"I think it'll be okay this time, Gus," she said, trying to sound soothing more than hopeful.

Yet he stayed awfully despondent and non-responsive, until Shawn and Carlton returned to the yard for another round of boxes and garbage bags. Shawn had packed in a hurry, though his decision to move in with Carlton had been made weeks ago. He kept putting off the packing part, knowing it wouldn't take more than three hours to shove his scant amount of stuff into apparatuses to move them from Point A—Mee Mee's Fluff *n Fold (Santa Barbara's Cleanest)—to Point B—prosaically named "Lassie's." Shawn was considering another noun for that title: Lassie's Hole, Lassie's Well—or—or not. It was _Lassie's_, and that was enough. He rubbed his belly as though the happy thought sated him. Gus was discombobulated.

"Dude, I told you—like I always tell you—don't have the fire-roasted vegetable soup with lunch. It always gives you dyspepsia."

Gus made a whimpering sound, like a cat a bathtub. He grabbed the box from Juliet and stormed into the house. Shawn gaped at him.

"Is Gus allergic to the word 'dyspepsia' today, Jules?"

"He's just having a little difficulty adjusting to changes."

"Scorpios," scoffed Shawn, "you can't get them like change enough to change the channel, heh, or their underwear."

Juliet stared at him before reaching for a garbage bag to thrust into his arms. "Gus isn't a Scorpio."

Of course, Shawn knew that, as well as he knew that Carlton was "supposedly an Aries," but had so many other signs in him, he was like a ram that swam in the great blue sea, half-clinging to a big trusty piece of driftwood. Juliet was a lovely Libra—there was nothing more to say about her but that she was Everything Libra: sociable, just, Venusian. He knew all this only because his psychic friend, the real psychic, Lady Olga, had given him the rundown once, and he had gathered enough astrology skills to write the occasional essay about it. He could bullshit his way through an essay, sell them off to magazines and blogs, and there were extra dollars floating around in the Psych checking account. To be used to buy something completely frivolous, otherwise writing those essays would be, like, actual work.

He offered to take a bundle of garbage bags into the house. It was a good thing he'd lived two months at Uncle Fenz's farm. Taking care of horses, throwing around bales of hay, among other chores, had ripened his muscles. He could lift Lassie four whole inches off the ground now. Assuming that Lassie was interested in giving his back a massage afterward, because there had to be some painful compensation for what defied the laws of physics. Still—four inches! Mr. T had nothing on him.

Of course, since Lassiter had spent a month at Uncle Fenz's, sharing many of Shawn's chores, he could lift Shawn five whole inches off the ground. But—minor detail. Considering that Lassie got to be all buff and Shawn reaped the benefits, there wasn't much to complain about. Now Shawn got to reap those benefits in their bedroom without the shock of Carlton smelling like horse, or random straw bits tickling him between the sheets, or one of the barn cats creeping in and deciding their pre-orgasmic tumble was a fine time to take a nap (well, in truth, that had happened only once, but it about ruined Shawn's chances of Carlton ever letting him have a cat).

It was the sort of day that he loved to go in and out, that the temperature was unvaried between the house and the garden. He'd loved the house since he'd first set eyes on it. Occasionally love was that easy. There was nothing spectacular about it, except that it had cost less to own that little piece of Americana than it had to rent the laundromat. He didn't know much about buying a house, but Gus had given him the Cliff Notes version about down payment size and—and there was something about mortgage in there, too. It was just a small place—there was the dining room—oh, two steps—and now the living room. The hallway made for midgets and people not blessed with his broad shoulders. The bathroom—hello, little claw-foot tub that I adore!—for you have brought me many happy memories, and here's to many more! The guest room—its nautical theme unchanged from Juliet's decorating binge. Then, then, _then_—wait for it—_the bedroom_.

It had two double windows, one looking to the side yard, one to the front, draped in filmy curtains of a faded primrose color, then with wooden horizontal blinds often pulled up for the sunshine. The walls were painted one of those "spa green" tints, one of those emollient greens that tried to pretend it was neutral. The basics of furniture—Carlton was a stickler for the basics—that looked like it could've been from the days of his Civil War forefathers or built two weeks ago. The only piece of furniture Shawn owned in the bedroom was a candlestick stand his uncle had given them, from the old Humphrey homestead of southern Indiana. Uncle Fenz had "wanted them to have a branch of the lineage." It was the nicest piece of furniture Shawn had ever owned, and one of the few things—things he could count on one hand—that he was proud of.

The room did not usually hold a Burton Guster, though.

Shawn dropped the garbage bags on a bed already heaped. A hodgepodge of clothing, his and Carlton's, some bibelots, some movies, and, well, so on. Moving was an act Shawn was used to. He'd lived his life like a nomad for years and years. It had taken a return to his hometown to find an actual home.

Every few seconds, Gus sniffled and breathed through his mouth. He was bent over, taking items from the file box, putting Shawn's shirts in Shawn's dresser drawer. A drawer. _Shawn has a drawer of clothes at Lassiter's house_. It was all very strange. "I feel like I'm on a carnival ride," he grumbled, aware of Shawn standing there. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"You've asked me that, like, a million times already." He fiddled with a—what the hell was this?—and let it fall to the bedlam of clothes. "Yes, I'm sure. Second happiest day of my life."

"The first is the day you two met, I suppose."

"Gus, don't be the rotten artichoke in the back of the fridge."

"Fine, but then I'm asking Lassiter why he has an artichoke."

"That's more than fair. The happiest day of my life happens to be the day that I first thought of starting Psych."

Gus glared and used a wimpy gesture to stretch his point. "That's also the day you and Lassiter first met."

"Is it?" Shawn did that thing—you know, that thing—a tilt of the head, a wince, a hint of speculation and doubt mixing together. "So it was… So it was… Well, what a lucky happenstance for us all!"

"Yeah, right. Who'd have thought that all these years later, I'd be married to Juliet and you'd be making out with Lassiter in the A.V. room."

"That—that never happens." Shawn folded his arms and set his jaw. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Then the two of you must be watching a lot of soap operas at five-minute intervals. Come on," he slapped Shawn on the shoulder—all forgiven, and friendship so loved—"there are only a few bags left."

"I told you this wouldn't take very long," Shawn said, following him. "We'd finish in time to hold our yearly Trivial Pursuit—80's Edition—contest and marathon—while we watch all seven seasons of _MacGyver_—"

"And drink Kool-aid."

"And eat pretzel sticks."

"Dipped in the Kool-aid," they said at the same time, and pointed at each other swiftly.

Outside, Shawn noticed Carlton had his game-face on and a phone to his ear, and Juliet was rushing, hard to do in flip-flops, graceful Libra or not, with the bags. He and Gus shared a look. "I'll go help Jules," Gus said, "and you find out what's going on."

Shawn knew he got the better end of that deal. Lassiter hung up just as Shawn approached him. "I'm sensing that we're going to have to put off our annual marathon," he held his hand beside his head and emoted mysteriousness. "Unless there's a Trivial Pursuit—_Murderer's Edition_."

Carlton smiled and pretended that the play of words impressed him. "It's just a good thing that you only own a milk-carton full of stuff. We'll start our investigation and come back home as soon as possible. Why do people have to go and get themselves killed on Sunday?"

"You really want to get your butt whooped at Trivial Pursuit. That's it, isn't it." He liked it when Carlton dropped a hand at his neck and moved them along. The fingers flexed delicately. They bumped into one another—in tune, in unison.

"Not really," Carlton replied, sounding mellow as the day. "I just want to get to the third season of MacGyver. It has some of my favorite episodes."

Shawn stopped and wrapped a fist in the front of Lassie's shirt. "I love you so much right now—as long as you say your favorite episode is not 'Rock the Cradle'. Because, seriously, babies in television shows that don't belong to the weekly cast really freak me out. They always have that fake cry that never, ever sounds real. And, plus, the title's lyrics to a Billy Idol song. So wrong—on so many levels." The blather and mayhem of his speech was rewarded by a lovely brief kiss and a pat at the cheek. Whenever it happened, Shawn was stunned for a second, then skipped away on top of clouds. It was like he'd won the biggest battle of his life now that Lassiter kissed him of his own free will.

Carlton rounded up Juliet and Gus. Shawn oozed into the role of castellan, locking the tricky back door with a key he'd had a lot longer than he'd been Lassiter's committed footsie partner.

"I call shotgun!" he cried, running down the sidewalk through the blooming botanicals to the carport. He knew the four of them would take Lassiter's car. The days when they used to arrive separately at crime scenes were long gone.

"Too late," Juliet said, smirking, and opened the passenger's door. "I already called it! Ha, ha!"

"What? Jules, come on! Well, fine, but if Lassiter wants a little thigh-squeezing, I'm not going to rally to your defense!"

"Will you get in here, Shawn?" demanded Gus. "I want to get this dead body investigated soon so we can still have burgers on the grill. I'm starving."

Shawn pulled his mouth in. "Really?"

"I know what you mean," Gus said, nodding. "Never thought I'd say that. Please make sure I never use food and dead bodies in a sentence together again."

"You got it, buddy. We're all in, Lassie," Shawn patted his shoulders from behind. Lassiter acknowledged it with a rev of the engine, and on went the unmarked car's blinky lights.

"Let's ride."

.

.


	2. Chapter of Trivia

2.

Shawn more than sympathized with Gus's feelings regarding a hurried introduction to the new case. Shawn was downright empathetic. Though curious about appearing with Lassiter in front of coworkers for the first time since his return home, Shawn knew he was getting bored with it. Not the crimes, necessarily: As long as there were people hurting and dying in Santa Barbara and he could help, he was going to be an instrument of justice. But the endless hours hanging around the Psych office, being at home, whether at the laundry basket, at his dad's, at Gus's, it was beginning to lose its shininess. He'd liked being at his great uncle's place. If there wasn't something to do, then he found something to do. Santa Barbara was decidedly _not _his uncle's place. And now the dreaded J-word began popping into his mind unwanted: JOB.

If he did get a job, it had to be something quiet, preferably something outdoors, something that he already knew how to do. Which ruled out gardener and pool boy. Mike Cooligan, the manager and owner of the Tanglevine Club, was a "fan" of Shawn Spencer, and said that if he ever felt the desire to be in a stage show, as a principal player, all he had to do was let him know. The idea had tempted Shawn for about a split second. But it was a lot of work, a lot of hours cooped up indoors, a lot of afternoon rehearsals and no free evenings, and evenings were the only times that Lassiter was ever home. That wouldn't fly. Being part of a vaudeville act was too taxing physically. And mentally—forget about it.

Cooligan had done a marvelous job renovating "the Vine" since Ramone's poisoning and the self-slaughtering of Summer Preacher (real name: Tami Louise Kahn). Shawn had been in there three times in the last week, with Mike the owner and Mike the bartender always happy to see him. Shawn usually sat at the old upright piano and pretended to crank out tunes, while Mike B. kept his glass full of club soda and lemon wedges. Mike C. had the idea to turn the Tanglevine Club back into a western-style saloon, and it seemed to be working. Shawn was more fond of it than ever, now it had elegant pargeting, striped wallpaper, pretty wall sconces and an enormous stone fireplace, so that the atmosphere carried the scents of wood smoke, like the campfires he and Lassie built whenever they took the horses and roamed out into the thick Indiana woods for a day. No beans, though; Shawn outright refused beans. Mike C. still continued to tease Shawn about what the dinner menu would hold: red beans and rice, chili with extra beans, baked beans, vegetarian baked beans, capers and pine nuts over green beans, and—so forth. Shawn, Mike B. and Mike C. tended to joke around and sing dumb drinking songs when the three of them were together, rather than do any of that bothersome work stuff.

He loved the Tanglevine Club—but, no, that wasn't the right job for him either. Continuously pressed into him, from every side, was the thought that he wasn't fit for anything but fake psychic detective. How could that be true? There was so much he loved, so much passion in him, that it seemed a shame. A person couldn't really grow tired of doing the one thing he was good at. And, if he did, he'd have to laugh at the consequences.

Over the last week, he'd tried to talk to Gus about it, then failed because the notions were so nebulous, the clear bits too depressing, that Shawn was incapable of speaking them. They'd have no choice but to talk about THINGS—great, big, enormous things—within the next three weeks: the lease of their Psych office was up at the end of the month.

He'd been an idiot not to talk to Carlton about it. Again, though, what the hell was he supposed to say? If he told Carlton that he, Shawn Spencer, wanted to get another job, a sort of play job, what would Carlton say? Lassiter had very adamantly declared he could take care of Shawn, that he was "working on some things" to make living together run a little smoother. Shawn had no idea what those things were, and gaping hole in his knowledge thrilled. But Lassiter so insisted on being a provider, taking care of Shawn, that he'd likely see it as an affront to his masculinity if Shawn even breathed a word about taking another job. Then Shawn would have two jobs, and how would that help?

He wondered if it had taken Gus and Jules time to adjust to certain protocols, or if everything had fallen into place for them without the slightest bit of sweat on the brow. Gus wasn't too open about what went on with Juliet in the paradise of their marriage, not yet four months old, but he answered any questions Shawn asked. The two old friends might have to schedule quality time together, now that they both had someone, had flipped through all the "stages" and "places" a relationship can ascend—and quickly descend—and maybe Shawn could learn a thing or two. Moving in with someone was a whole lot more than Shawn ever asked of himself. But it seemed, at times, too dreamlike to be true: the perfect timing of his lease on the laundry basket running out, and spending a whole month with Carlton, ironing out their differences, melding their synergy, forging a union that would withstand eons—and their tempers.

A month alone with Carlton in the Indiana countryside had been a teaser for the rest of the show ahead. A show that might last a month. Maybe a lifetime. It might end tomorrow. But, no, probably not. Decidedly not. The thought, comforting and sweet, sent his hand to poke Lassie in the side. They'd already been through their first fight—right before Carlton left—that later saw them laughing as they realized the stress they'd put themselves under. Together a whole month, hour upon hour, and then separated for four weeks. It was no wonder they'd argued, snowballing from something dumb into something horrendous, then spiraling into laughter. They'd traveled through the veil covering the fantasy and wonderment of something brand new—and right on into coarse, familiar reality. Lassie made good on his promise, however. He argued with Shawn, neither of them "winning" the argument, and then kissed him at the end of it. Shawn could trust a man who made good all his promises.

"Where the heck are we?" Gus spoke up, wavering from sports-themed chit-chat to glare incredulously at alien scenery. "And how far away is this place, Lassiter?"

Shawn perked his head up and glanced out the window. It was strange to go from the otherworldly glow of Indiana in autumn to autumn on the California coast. He expected oak trees and cedars and maple trees blazing bright. Not the bland, colorless world of dull, beige-tinted houses and one sharp blue sky untouched by a scudding cloud. He knew where they were. Having lived so long in Santa Barbara, he knew the neighborhoods, the streets, and the borders of the city. They were damn near the end of it. Half the neighborhood belonged in the police department's jurisdiction, and the other half to the county, also known as _The Sheriff's Department_. Deputies with badges and ugly cars, that tall, blondish bloke in an atrocious brown shirt a little too tight across his chest. Shawn shuddered and sank into the seat. It was bad enough that he and Lassie would have to test themselves out in front of a few coworkers, maybe Buzz and Dobson (though he suspected Dobson, shy and gay as a sunbeam, had been sitting, all this while, in the Shassie cheering section), but he didn't want them tested too harshly too soon.

Before they reached the city limits, Shawn saw lights, black and whites, and yellow tape surrounding the side yard of the shabbiest house in the neighborhood. Suits and Uniforms dashed about, splashes of the rainbow against the drab brown background. The chief's golden head and slender shape stood out in the crowd. Shawn's mouth inadvertently puckered. If she was there, it must be important. Then again, it was a nice afternoon, and maybe she'd wanted an excuse to get out of the house on a Sunday, dead body and all.

"Good afternoon, happy couples." She grinned at them, unable to help saying it when the four of them poured out of Lassiter's car. As though they'd rehearsed it, the quartet burst into simultaneous sarcastic smiles. Grimaces, really. "Sorry to break up the family barbecue, but I have a ten-fifty-six that needs some attention."

"A suicide? Well, that's—that's great. Now, Chief, I want you to see this." Lassiter took out his badge, his identification card, and used his finger to highlight the "detective" part. "Just in case you forgot."

"Very funny. Shawn's sense of humor is already rubbing off on you. Can't wait to see where this leads."

"We're hoping it leads better suits and nicer socks," put in Gus.

"Gus," whimpered Shawn.

"What? I was talking about _you._" A statement that won the temporary gratification of Lassiter.

Shawn studied the remark. "H'mm, fair riposte. But, Chief, seriously." He itched the top of his head, not to impart psychic vibrations, but because he had an itch and sometimes a man just needed to itch an itch. "I'm sensing that there's more to this suicide than meets the eye. Dude," he said to Gus, "if you hum the _Transformers_ theme, it'll get stuck in my head all day and you know how I hate that."

Gus pretended to look innocent. "Furthest thing from my mind."

"I'll bet. Chief, take us to the dead woman."

"Man."

"Well, I had a fifty-fifty chance of getting that one wrong. I'm so embarrassed right now. A little light-headed, too. God, it's super-bright out here!" He tore a quick glance across the too-blue empyrean. He _was _a little dizzy. No food, he thought. Lack of protein. He probably needed some beans. "I don't like being wrong my first day returned to this slovenly pit known as the Ess-Bee."

"That's all right, Mr. Spencer." She snapped her fingers to a nearby forensics geek. "You're just coming back from vacation and I can understand how you'd be a little rusty."

"I still can't get the horses' thoughts out of my head. Or Lassie's. Man thinks about food way too often. He's thinking about it right now. Hamburgers. With onion. As only Gus can grill them over an open flame. All juicy and—"

"Spencer," Lassiter grumbled before his gurgling, hungry tummy gurgled a little too loudly.

The lass from forensics handed the chief an evidence bag. In turn, Vick held it out for whoever grabbed it first. "You don't really need to see the dead body. You've seen a few too many suicides lately, Shawn."

"Just the one," Shawn said. "And I'm not counting the cardinal that flew into the patio window while I was at my uncle's. I'm not willing to discount that as a homicide. What is this?"

"It's a note," said Juliet, furrow in her brow as she left the bag in Shawn's palm.

Through the plastic, he smoothed out the note's wrinkles—it looked like it had been clenched in the victim's hand—until he was able to read the shaky print of red ink on a torn piece of office paper.

_I killed Christopher Sly._

That was all it said. Four words. An odd selection of four words.

Shawn recoiled, wincing, and pushing the evidence bag back to Chief Vick. "Great. So you want us to find Christopher Sly so his death can be avenged and his relatives will be given some peace."

"That's where the confusing part comes in," Vick replied, her grin coming and going as it did whenever she anticipated Shawn's reaction.

"Being that there's no such person as Christopher Sly," Gus said, crossing his arms and looking very smug.

Vick's eyes did a delightful saraband among them. "Now who's the psychic?"

"When everyone gangs up on the psychic, it's time to bow out," Shawn said. "I'm going to go look at the dead body. Have fun, y'all."

It amazed that no one tried to stop him.

The body lay on the ground, squared off with strands of police tape tied off at nearby trees. The ends of the tape snapped and crackled in the breeze. He had to look at that, the whiz-bang guidance of nature, as a moment of euphoria, before dropping his gaze to the body. Sensible shoes, worn at the soles. Trousers stained with dirt at the knees. Cardigan, buttoned. Gray hair and wrinkles, as expected. Nasty purple ring around the collar. Broken tree branch—yeah, that too. Had it been the rope or the fall that had killed the sad little imp of a man?

And, well, look at him. He wasn't exactly in shape. Arthritis knurled the hell out of his fingers, making them incapable of strangling, stabbing or shooting anyone, real or imaginary, named Christopher Sly.

Shawn borrowed a pair of gloves from Hainsey's forensics bag. Hainsey, bottling a few hairs taken off the victim's trousers, gave Shawn a warm greeting.

"How was the trip? I heard you were in, like, Ohio or somewhere."

"Indiana. But you get points for playing along. Trip was great, thanks. Many, many parts of it were great. But, you know, people die—and here we are. Know who the guy is?" He picked up the end of the rope an examined the work of the knot. Not expertly done. It would've made a sailor weep. It was tight enough to do the required job. And kudos, old man, for breaking a tree in the process. Suicides sure made a big mess for everyone else to clean up. He let go of the rope, unable to forget just yet the horror he'd seen in the room covered in Summer Preacher's blood. A tree and a bit of rope was a little less messy.

"His name's Waterstone. Rufus Waterstone. This was house. That was his tree."

"And this was once his neck. I see. Oh, hey, look! We rhymed! Rhyme jinx!"

He disposed of the gloves in what was once Mr. Waterstone's garbage pail, then tromped forward to meet his contemporaries. Or, as it seemed, just Gus. Lassiter and Juliet were with the patrol officers, and three neighbors who'd probably discovered the body. The Chief's special carriage was already on its way back to the Castle on Figueroa Street.

"So, psychic detective," Shawn slowly let Gus have a slug in the shoulder, "what's all this mad junk jive about Christopher Sly not being real?"

"Because he's not real. He's a fictional character."

"Was he in one of those _Star Wars _movies I didn't see?"

"No. He's from Shakespeare."

"Okay, wait. Which Shakespeare?"

"The one and only Shakespeare."

"I don't follow."

"Apparently you don't. Shakespeare used Christopher Sly at the beginning of a play."

"I believe you're fibbing, Gus."

"I'm not, Shawn. There's a rarity of Shakespeare-inspired jokes in my repertoire, for one thing."

"Then which play was it? Come on. Tell me. You have two seconds."

Gus needed the two seconds to remember. He hadn't studied much Shakespeare in the last twenty years. "Uh—I think it was _Twelfth Night_. Wait! No—it was—"

"Time's up."

Gus didn't need another second. "It was _The Taming of the Shrew_. Yeah. I'm sure that's the one."

"Absolutely, indisputably positive?"

"Ninety to ninety-five percent. That's ninety to ninety-five more positive than you."

Shawn whipped out his phone. He dialed a number and hit SEND. "I don't believe you."

"So who are you calling, then, one-eight-hundred ASK WILL?"

"That's a good one, Gus. I'll have to remember it." The other end of the line was answered. "Mike! Buddy! How's my favorite SB barkeeper this afternoon?"

"Busy," Mike B. responded. He'd had a presentiment, with spooky clairvoyance running through his bloodstream, that Shawn was on the other end of the ringing phone. "But, at the same time, kind of bored."

"My poor, bald friend, how much we have in common. I have a question to liven up your liberties."

Mike was the only person, outside of Gus, who had a head for ridiculous trivia. He'd gone to UCLA for six years, to alleviate his curse, Boredom, and had gleaned dollops of useless info that Shawn finally found a reason to tap into.

"All right. Shoot."

"Christopher Sly. Who is he?"

"You mean the Shakespeare character?"

"Uh, yeah—yeah. What play was he in?"

"Well, he wasn't really _in _anything. He was sort of a figurant in _The Taming of the Shrew_. It started out being a play-within-a-play. And Christopher Sly was supposed to get a play put on for him. I forget why. Something about him not seeing a play before. He was in the beginning of the play, had some lines—then, I don't know, it's like the Bard just forgot about him. But Sly wasn't—"

"Wasn't what?"

"You know. Real."

"That's what I keep hearing." Shawn hung up after giving thanks and a farewell. The look of deep thought brought grim shadows to his developing wrinkles. "H'mm, interesting. You were right, by the way. Don't get too excited about it. I wouldn't want you to show off or anything."

"It's just weird." Gus hadn't reacted at all to Shawn's concession. "Why would a man who hanged himself leave a note to say he killed a character that doesn't exist?"

"Can we do that again? Once more, with compassion—and fewer words. And with a goofy Nathan Fillion face, just to cheer things up a bit."

"Shawn, are you going to take this seriously, even a little bit?"

"I can't," Shawn said, bending his knees to bob up and down. "It's probably just a case where the man about to hang himself—with no sense of trees, by the way, or he wouldn't have hanged himself from the one rotting tree in this whole rotten, stinking neighborhood—!"

Shawn drew his mouth together and paled.

"You forgot what you were going to say, didn't you?" prompted Gus.

"Dude, I totally did. The whole diatribe about the tree and—crap. I'm getting old."

"You need some ginkgo—and a fish oil tablet once a day couldn't hurt."

"But what was I going to say? It was brilliant. I remember that much."

"'The man about to hang himself'—"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, right, right! I got it now. Let's pick it up again on three. One. Two. Three. The guy about to hang himself—wanted to show the world that he wasn't just some random nonentity. So what's he do? He sends the cops who find his body on a quest for a man that doesn't exist—just so he, the dead guy, finally gets the last laugh."

Juliet and Lassiter had returned, their expressions deadpan.

"That makes no sense, Shawn," Juliet said, as if she'd been expecting, for years, for Shawn Spencer to say one thing that made sense. "Why would a dead guy want to have the last laugh? He's dead."

"Jules, where's your sympathy?"

"My grandfather used to tell me that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

"Is this the same grandfather you told me about that used to pretend he was Esther Williams whenever he wore a bathing suit?"

She refused to be diverted. "He enjoyed that, and it entertained us kids. But that's not the point. The point is that sometimes a suicide is just a suicide."

"Except when it's creepy," added Gus, who understood Juliet's hints. "And this suicide is just—creepy. Look at it. Autumn leaves blowing around. Half-bare trees. Creepy house. Even his outfit is all threadbare and creepy. I'm waiting for Vincent Price to form in a mist."

Juliet confirmed Gus's wild thoughts with a solid nod. "I don't like it. So, whether you like it or not, Shawn, I'm going into the station to run Christopher Sly through the databanks. I bet I'll get a few hits."

"No, Jules, come on!" protested Shawn. "Just forget this whole Hollywood-like setting of—of a suicide—of someone unimportant! We have plans of our own! It's Trivial Pursuit day! And—and MacGyver. And hamburgers. You know Gus is going to grill your small little beefy patty until it's a charred biscuit indistinguishable from a cow chip. He always does. Would your heroic husband let you down?"

"I love Gus's cow chip hamburgers, Shawn, you know I do. But this is important. And aren't you even slightly curious?"

"I lost so much curiosity the day I found out Lassie's got this—"

"You! No! Speak!" Lassie pointed then calmly applied the hand over Shawn's mouth. He held his palm there until he felt Shawn's lips form into a smile, then, cautiously, let go. "We'll have to postpone our ritualistic Sunday."

"You too, Lass? If Gus and Jules were going to get all 'investigaty,' I was going to suggest a naked barbecue, just the two of us—and possibly any binocular-wielding neighbors. But I see now that'll have to wait."

"Unlike you, Shawn, I do have curiosity to see if Christopher Sly is real, or if the old man was merely delusional."

"They didn't find any medications to indicate that delusions were a part of his everyday life," Juliet said, anticipating Shawn's question. "In combination with a suicide of this caliber, and so out in the open, we can't rule out a delusion or two. I took a look inside. He had a few Shakespeare books. No copy of _The Taming of the Shrew_, but maybe it'll turn up later."

Shawn leaned into Lassiter. "I want to go inside. Can you get me inside?" He felt a slight tap at his hip, an indication that Carlton would escort him. Shawn wanted to look at those volumes of Shakespeare more than he'd wanted to look at any book in his life, even photo albums of little baby Lassie.

"I think I'll go with Juliet." Gus slapped Shawn on the arm. "Enjoy your quiet Sunday naked barbecue alone, Shawn."

Shawn waited until they'd disappeared in a patrol car. At the front door, two officers had to take second glances at Detective Lassiter. He hardly looked like himself without a suit and tie on. Shawn they'd know if he showed up with a paper sack over his head. They sensed in Detective Lassiter all the staunch competency of his experience, now with an undercurrent of contentment rather than rage. Lassiter knew there were rumors—there'd always been rumors—vile, disgusting rumors, at first—funnier the more true they became. But if anyone so much as glared at him or Shawn the wrong way, he planned to make him sorry. It was enough that he'd already visited with Internal Affairs, the ginger-headed gimlet from Human Resources, and had to spill his guts about things in his guts he'd intended to keep within him, or just whisper into Shawn's ear. Of course, being with Shawn now meant Lassiter could no longer hold psychological evaluations with Dr. Maddie. Every beautiful sunset had a speck of ugliness in it somewhere, he supposed. Solace came in the idea of having Maddie around for tea on the patio again. That would be nice. The three of them…

Shawn executed the precise move Lassiter had predicted: a bee-line straight for the bookcase. It filled the outside wall. It carried more than books: vases, figurines, photographs. Lassiter watched Shawn, who did nothing more than crane his head around and stare, and wondered what a psychic saw that the rest of them didn't. O'Hara saw things that he didn't. Even Gus, on occasion, provided a detail each of them had missed. If they couldn't put the pieces together, Shawn did. The month spent with Shawn in Indiana lifted Lassiter's belief in Shawn's 'ability.' It wasn't all real. It wasn't all fake, either. "I'm like a magic show," Shawn had told him, tightly snuggled together in bed on a rainy morning. "You know it's an illusion, and you know what you're seeing can't be real, but you don't care how it's done because a belief in it is all that matters. The belief is the magic."

Shawn didn't need to touch anything, but, oh, he wanted to. The shelf was a cantina of loveliness: old, smelly books too thick and heavy to be held by one hand; beautiful Oriental vases of the most intricate floral designs; enameled black boxes with their lids exquisitely painted. Whoever Rufus Waterstone was, he certainly had good taste and chose to exhibit it in his mini-museum. A Libra, Shawn guessed. Or a good Venus placement well-aspected by Jupiter. Mars in the Sixth House… He cursed himself for turning into a Llewellyn-published handbook. But, yeah—Libra.

To the thrill of his detective skills, there were gaps and holes between books. He borrowed a flashlight. With the beam running parallel the bookcase shelf, one by one, the light caught the thin layer of dust. It also caught where the dust wasn't. He turned off the light and hoisted it back to its owner.

"I've seen enough," he told Lassie. "We're free to depart whenever you're ready."

"Are you curious enough now to head to the station?"

"Eh, yeah, I guess." He waited for Lassiter to enter the car before finishing his thought. "But can we please stop somewhere and get something to eat? I'm so hungry it's like there's a whole barrage of bagpipes warming up in my stomach."

"I told you to eat lunch." Lassiter had learned, kind of the hard way, that Shawn wasn't great at eating breakfast, and now he knew Shawn skipped it for a good reason. Shawn's breakfast was often his lunch. "You never know when a dead body might call you away."

"It would've been nice if I'd been born with some kind of gift that helps me see into the future." He loved saying ridiculous things when it wrung a snicker from Carlton. "Between you and me and the bagpipers, Lassie, I think our dear, sweet Karen couldn't wait to call us together on a case. Now, that, you know, I can hop in the shower with you and not have you shoot me, as we proved this morning. And I'm sorry I didn't take you up on your idea of a toaster strudel. Believe me, you can't know how sorry. Raspberry or cherry?"

"Raspberry."

"Of course it was."

Carlton scratched Shawn's belly to help settle the bagpipers. They were ten lords a leaping by the time Carlton steered the car into a drive-thru—right behind another familiar patrol car. Shawn's phone rang.

"Dude, I can't believe you came to the same food establishment," Gus said.

"And I can't believe you still don't get it, Gus: _psy-chic_. Really. It's astounding. I have business cards that say how awesome I am. Actually, I'll own up: Coming here was Lassiter's idea. He likes the yogurt parfait. So, what are you ordering?"

"I don't know. I heard the chicken salad is good, and I've never had that."

"Oh. I think I'll get one of those. Sourdough bread or croissant?"

"I think the sourdough might be more filling."

"Agreed. And manly. I'm in the mood for manly food. Beverage?"

"I'll get a juice at the station. It's cheaper."

"Good plan. For dessert we can split the Almond Joy I taped to the bottom of Lassie's desk. Remind me it's there later, will you? I think it's been there since June. I keep forgetting to eat it."

"You stash candy everywhere."

"I'm part aardvark."

"You mean squirrel."

"I'm not nearly hairy enough for that, dude. But I admit an unabashed love for nuts."

"Jules says you're like Claudia in the _Baby-sitter's Club_ books."

"Tell Jules she's the only one who can make that comparison."

"I'm not telling her. You tell her."

"I'll be too busy shoving chicken salad in my mouth to even care."

"What'd you find in the guy's house, then?"

"Not much," he said evasively. "His name's Rufus Waterstone. Mean anything to you?"

"A little. Just not sure how or why. Waterstone," he repeated for Juliet's ears. It provoked nothing from her, and she collected the odoriferous paper sacks from their driver. "I gotta go. Food's here."

Shawn had a sack of food on his lap a moment later. He kept receiving sidelong glances from Lassiter.

"You can eat, Shawn."

"No. It seems rude to eat in front of you. I can wait. You might have to tickle my belly again to keep the bagpipers from going crazy. They seem to want to play bagpipes _and_ a hockey game all at the same time. Most ambitious bagpipers. And apparently Canadian. Their little pennons have maple leaves on them."

When they were back on State Street, Lassiter obliged in department of tickling. Shawn captured his hand and held it in place. They didn't move or speak again for five whole minutes. Lassiter had familiarized himself with Shawn's dithyrambic prattle, along with the opposite: Shawn's intense, lengthy silences. The two frames of mind were so contrary that their first appearance, one right after the other, alarmed Carlton. He learned, eventually, through observation, that Shawn was quietest when he was happy, and loudest when he was nervous, distressed, or far too grossly pleased with himself. Most mornings, too, he was fairly quiet and often speechless. By afternoon, he was awake enough for canary-like chatter. After nine o' clock at night, he fell quiet again. "I move like tides, Lass," Shawn confessed; "I'm hardly made of water, but I am made of tides."

"Well?" Carlton said, the car parked, the keys in his hand, the seat belt slipping back. "Want to go inside and find out who Christopher Sly is?"

"I want to go inside and eat. I don't know that we'll find out who Christopher Sly is."

It was such a beautiful day. How could a man kill himself on such a pretty day? All over someone who didn't exist?

As soon as he entered the station, Shawn wanted to turn around and leave. He managed to inveigle Juliet and Gus into eating in the courtyard. They weren't the only ones with the idea, but it was better to share some green space than to feel trapped beneath a ceiling, cramped by walls.

"Shawn." Juliet snapped her fingers to draw his attention from the nothingness that held it. She looked dolefully at Lassiter. "Did he not take his pill this morning or what? Shawn."

"I hear you, Jules. And, yes—yes I did."

"Did you find anything in Waterstone's house?"

He had. But he wasn't going to tell them right away. Where was the fun and excitement in that?

"Dust doesn't lie, Juliet O'Hara. People lie. Down. On the ground."

He found a spare piece of grass and sprawled upon it. Chicken salad on sourdough half-eaten on his chest, lifted every once in a while so he could masticate in thoughtful silence. It might turn out to be the best case of his career. Yet, already—he was bored with it. And he had a weird tingling behind his sternum. A feeling that took a moment to identify. He had to sort through the entirety of his life on the planet to find similar instances of that indescribable weakness. He snickered to himself.

He was homesick.


	3. Chapter of Invisibles

3.

Following a brief trip to the second story to check on something, Chief Vick returned to the station's main floor. A group crammed together brought her steps dribbling to a halt. Personnel gathered at Lassiter's desk, with her head detective in his chair, Shawn's chin on his shoulder; Gus, O'Hara, McNab, Dobson, Jones, and Arlette constructed the rest of the crew. Every set of eyes latched to Lassiter's computer screen. They looked up at her sheepishly.

She stared at them, hoping to unnerve. Power to the Chief and all of that. "Do I get three guesses? It's either porn, a cute picture of a puppy, or something about Christopher Sly."

"Got it in three, Chief," Spencer replied, holding a fingertip to his nose, the other hand pointing at her. "It's porn." He slapped Lassiter to bring him in on the joke. But, of course, Lassie being Lassie, he was unconvincingly slow. "It's actually a cute picture of a puppy on the set of a porn movie directed by a man named Christopher Sly. My gosh, Chief, you're roasting! Your aura is crackling! It—"

"Anything, O'Hara?" Chief Vick looked to the more responsible member of the party. The other officers, abashed by Shawn's jokes—yet silently loving him for it, too—shuffled away, seeing as how the chief didn't require their input.

"There wasn't anything in the databanks," Juliet replied, whipping out a sheet of paper, covered in a printout of all the various syntax searches she'd punched into the computer. "No death certificates. No birth certificates. No criminal record. No social security number. And, well, you get the idea."

"He isn't real," Vick said through her teeth. "So what's with the peep show, Detective Lassiter?"

"Uh," Lassiter hadn't quite recovered from Shawn's remarks, "I—uh—we were looking on the internet for any Christopher Sly in the area."

Dead silence rang in their ears. Vick goaded him along.

"And?"

"We were distracted," Lassiter finally said, his eyes shifty, "by some photos that showed up in an image search."

"My idea, by the way." Gus nodded to her once, prior to the chief extending her congratulations, which she never did. "We found a couple of Christopher Slys used in _Shrew _performances, but no Christopher Sly by name. I mean no real Christopher Sly. I mean—"

"I get what you mean, Gus," said Vick, swabbing her forehead with fingertips. It was far from ordinary for her to call him Gus; she'd only known him eight years and he'd married one of her detectives. He couldn't have been a bigger part of the police department family if he got a badge slapped on his chest. The identical appeal could be made for Shawn. But it was in Shawn's blood, the roots of his hair, probably in his spleen, too. And he had Carlton. She guided her thoughts in another direction, away from Shawn and Carlton, Gus and Juliet. She sighed, patterning her thoughts after a feeling in her gut. "Keep looking, if you want—otherwise, I don't know—go home. It was worth looking into if nothing else."

No better news could've landed in Shawn's ears. He pecked Carlton high on his cheekbone and started on his way. He gave his farewell phrase: "Call me if there's a dead body."

Gus, Juliet and Carlton shoved confused glances upon each other. "Five seconds," Carlton voiced, then began the countdown. At zero, Shawn reversed, came back to them, his hands folded neatly under his chin. Big eyes, brown sometimes and often under the witchery of moonlight, went from friend to friend, landing on lover.

"I-I need a ride."

Once Lassiter got to work, he tended to stay there. No pun on his nickname, either, after a famous loyal (and female) Hollywood dog. He slipped into a groove that made him dance a certain way. Even Shawn's charms failed to change the dance. Craven in the shadow of Lassiter's determination, his provoking and kind of sexy stubbornness, Shawn accepted it, suggested to Gus they hitch a ride with Buzz—and dashed out to the parking lot to see if they could catch him before he went on patrol.

Back at Lassiter's house—Lassie's Place, Lassie's Castle, The Fortress of Love—no, none of those…

Back at Lassiter's house, Shawn exerted no tremendous effort to keep Gus hanging around, but found his best friend wanted to do it anyway. They went ahead with the plan before a dead body interrupted. Shawn took the patties, formed that morning, out of the refrigerator while Gus fired up the grill. For the sake of carrying a joke, Shawn plopped an ugly, sick-looking artichoke down in the middle of the patio table. The bracts had started browning and liquefying.

"I call it art," Shawn said, giving it a good gesture.

"I call it something foul. Ugh." Gus covered his sensitive nose but fiercely grabbed the plate of patties. He slapped them on the warmed-up grates.

"Yes, because grilled cow meat is sometimes a whole lot better than anything naturally fermented."

"You got that right. What do you think about Mr. Waterstone? You never really said what you saw in his house."

Shawn sailed into his favorite chair, within sight of the dwarf lemon tree he wanted to call Lavender Scarlet. His feet, often bare in the summer, were now resigned to socks and shoes again. He lobbed them to rest at an empty spot on the table. The view was not as spectacular, maybe, as his dad's yard, but beachfront property no longer had such appeal to Shawn, used to seeing a big fat yard, barns, five acres straight south choked with trees. But it was a nice view. A little bit of it was his, too. He returned, slipshod, to a question still needing a decent answer.

"Sometimes it's not what I see, Gus. Sometimes it's about what isn't there."

"Are you trying to tell me you didn't find anything? I hate it when you channel Lady Olga."

"Lady Olga channels me, Gus, me!"

"Uh-huh. Shawn, either you found something or you didn't. What's with all the secrecy?"

"Just trying to make it more exciting."

"When are dead bodies not exciting?"

"When you've seen about a hundred and fifty of them. But I digress."

"You can't have a digression without an ingression."

"Bah."

Gus glanced at Shawn, guessing then that a variable in Shawn had acquired a kink somehow. Shawn was probably uncomfortable, now he was back in Santa Barbara after being away so long. His first real night at Lassiter's house, too. Their plans to celebrate it had gone rather awry. That's what happened when one tried to make plans.

"Shawn, let me give you a piece of advice. It took me a while to learn it, but I think you're ready to hear it."

"Lay it on me, buddy. You know I love your advice. I'm going to have a whole section devoted to Gus's Axioms when I get around to writing my autobiography. Which, by the way, I am not going to start working on until I can get Edger Winter to write the forward. But—sans appropriate ingression, Gus, I digress. What's your advice?"

Oh, it must be important. It must be heart-to-heart talk now. Gus left the hamburgers and sat down in a chair. He paid Shawn attention. There grew an awkward closeness between them.

Shawn lifted a brow. "Are you going to talk about your sex life with Jules again, because I've got you beat there, my friend. Beat!"

Gus was shaking his head, mouth cranked into a little smile. Shawn settled back, feathers smoothed—for the moment. No sex talk, then. Shawn silently thanked the Lord—the Patron Saint of Sex—whoever that was—St. Sebastian? Patron Saint of Gays, anyway—and then Shawn realized his mind was spinning tangents. Had he really taken his medicine that morning? He wanted to get up and count the pills. Just to be sure. There should be twenty-six. Because ninety from twenty-six would equal the number of days—

"Shawn, listen to me closely for a second."

"A second's about all I can give. Apparently."

"When you're dealing with a cop, it's important to realize that you're only ever going to come in after their job. They have the job. Then—they have you."

Shawn stared at him. Really? Oh, my God. Really? Then he grabbed his water, sipped, started to laugh, managed to swallow, and laughed out loud. Gus, stymied, leaned away, unsure what Shawn found so funny.

"You just gave me advice on how to handle having a cop around," said Shawn. "Me. Shawn Spencer. Son of—"

"Ooh," murmured Gus, enlightened. He lifted his hand as he got up. "You're right. I apologize. Of course you know all about having a cop in the house."

"And where I stood in The Tier of Importance, too. Probably third. Some days fourth, if he was fishing that day. But, yeah, you're right. Lassie's a cop and dead bodies will always be his number one crush. At least I get it. I'm already house-trained and he doesn't have to explain himself to me."

"I'm sure that means a lot to him," Gus said, returned to tending burgers. Juices were beginning, kicking up smoke and flames. "And it probably does a lot to lower his stress level. How is Lassie's cholesterol, anyway? Has he ever said? Has he had an EKG yet?"

"I don't like it when you play doctor with my boyfriend. He's in his forties, Gus. And, trust me, he's in good shape." Shawn's mind wound into the history of their time in Indiana—a whole house and no one but themselves to speak to, to be with; from their first marathon evening to their sobering goodbye kiss.

"Please stop thinking about having sex with Lassiter," quibbled Gus, gripping the spatula a little tighter. "It's disturbing. You get a glossy sheen in your eyes."

"Years of smoking pot, dude."

"You never smoked a bit of pot in your life, Shawn. Not that I'm saying that mightn't have mellowed you out a little bit."

"Why, Burton Guster, you sneaky little pro-dope smuggler! What else did you do in Mazatlán with Mira? Do you own the whole state if Sinaloa—honorary governor?"

"You're deflecting."

"I do it so well. Seems a shame to let my talents go to waste. You brought it up."

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I don't even remember what we were talking about."

"Hey, I win."

"Will you get me some salt and pepper, please? That should be deflection enough. Even for you."

Shawn's lackadaisical wander into the kitchen claimed more than thirty seconds. His bottle of pills were not above the kitchen sink, next to Brad, as they usually were. He put them there to see them, take them, some early morning hour that was never the smooth thing of clockwork his doctor wanted. But—pills! Where were they? What if he hadn't taken them? He'd spent the night at the laundry basket—couldn't remember that morning from the last mornings of the week. He gave Gus the salt and pepper, went back inside, down the hallway, right at the bathroom—and picked up an amber bottle with his name on it. He dumped them onto the bathroom counter. There were twenty-five. Shouldn't there be twenty-six? Did he take two that morning, one when he got up at Mee Mee's, and another when he got to Lassiter's? Had he? Was he going to have to start writing things down? What the hell was wrong with him? Maybe he had taken two pills and that was the problem.

Gus noticed nothing further amiss in Shawn, but that he got quieter. Tired, probably. They had moved two whole carloads of stuff, gone to see a dead body, and cooked out. Though Gus was taking full credit for the last one. Unable to eat another bite—sourdough bread was filling, after all—Gus put the patties in the kitchen to cool before he made Shawn wrap them up for storing. Returned to the patio, Gus's shoulders dropped. Shawn was scribbling in his dog-eared notebook. A peek over Shawn's shoulder revealed nothing: Shawn was writing in shorthand.

"Why you gotta do that? You know it makes my brain hurt. What are you writing down?"

"The secret to my success, Gus. I can't tell you or it wouldn't be a secret."

"I'm somewhat convinced that the secret of life is wearing fancy underwear."

"Or no underwear at all." Shawn made another phonetic swirl. He liked shorthand, being both precise and imprecise, a guessing game, a tandem of seemingly unrelated constituents. Like him. A brown bottle of ale, decapitated, came down in the middle of his paper. "I was working. And almost done. I should've asked Lassie to look into Waterstone."

"They'll have a nice fat file for you to sink your teeth into tomorrow. You know, Monday."

"I think I've heard of it. That's the day that rains a lot and gets me down. Yeah. We're familiar with one another."

"If it rains tomorrow, I'm asking for lottery numbers again, fake psychic ability notwithstanding."

Shawn capped his favorite pen, shoved the notebook aside, and sipped the ale. "I wondered what it would be like. Getting back. Living here."

"You've snuck into Lassiter's place I don't know how many times. It's not like it's a foreign land."

"Being able to rummage through his underwear drawer, now that's a foreign land. But," he sighed, smugly tilting into the seat, "I came, saw and conquered. No, seriously, as much as I like to talk about Lassie's underwear—"

"Please don't."

"I meant coming back here and getting back to work."

"What? You mean no pigs were ruthlessly murdered while you were in Barrel Creek? Color me shocked."

"I'd rather color you purple—or magenta—maybe even royal blue. Goes better with your complexion."

"If you turn into David Bromstad, Shawn, I'm out of here."

"Relax, Gus. No color splashing going on here. I'm all man." Shawn rubbed his chest, appreciating it—appreciating it more now that Lassiter appreciated it.

"And what are David Bromstad's huge arms, then?"

"Inky and sweet tubers of excellence. I—really have no idea."

"What'd you find in Waterstone's house?" Gus slid the question in again, on the sly.

"Listen up, Jackal, if you wanted to know so badly you should've come in with us."

Gus had had enough spooky experiences being inside the house of a new dead person to go out of his way to avoid it in the future. No way could he tell that to Shawn. "So you're not the least bit curious? You think Waterstone's tilted out of his rocker a bit?"

"A bit? Come on, Gus. The guy hung himself up at a tree. Even as far as suicides go, that oozes convention. Though I would've gone with a car—but that's just—"

"Shawn. You disturb me."

"Well, don't look shocked, Gus. I've disturbed you lots of times. For many years. You know my brain's not like other people's. You know I think weird thoughts. I can't help it. I gotta think weird thoughts and I gotta move when the rhythm gets me. And the rhythm is going to get me, Gus. It's just a matter of time before Gloria Estefan and generous portions of the Miami Sound Machine crawl out of the woodwork and ensnare me in their rhythm. I'm coming out of the dark, and I see your smile."

Gus's eyes slightly rolled as he took a sip of ale. "Knock it off."

He didn't expect Shawn to take the command so literally or so thoroughly. Knock it off Shawn did. The conversation continued, but gone was the youthful humor, except for the occasional splash into a memory of childhood. Gus thought he'd wait around till Lassiter came home, but twilight dimmed the back garden and Lassiter still hadn't returned, hadn't even called. Trivial Pursuit and the debris of snacks were tucked away in the kitchen. Gus analyzed Shawn, who shoved a bag of potato chips in the pantry. The same Shawn, really: under the mask of maturity, there was an unstable but unstoppable force—like the hellion five-year-old Gus vividly remembered.

"Hey, Shawn, don't you ever worry about Lassiter?"

"Lassie?" Shawn laughed, head wagging. "Not usually on any given day. You mean I should call him up and ask him where he is? Gus, please. Be serious. He still hasn't forgiven me—me, be mindful of _that _when I finish the rest of this thought—hasn't forgiven _me _for dragging his sorry, badly-in-need-of-a-tan ass all the way out to Indiana for a whole month. He claims he's still up to his shins in paperwork."

Gus snicker-snorted, tossing a hand at Shawn's idea. "Please. He's lying. Juliet told me that Dobson and Arlette handled most of his paperwork. I don't know what he's doing at the office, but it's probably not paperwork. You might want to check his fingers for paper cuts just in case."

"Nah." Shawn hopped on the kitchen counter, having nothing better to do than justify Lassiter's long office days—on a Sunday. "The Lassiter we've known and loved all this while wouldn't let Dobson or Arlette touch his desk let alone handle his paperwork. He might've told Jules one thing, but he would've acted another."

"I'll leave the character analysis up to you. Right now, I gotta get home. Lassiter might or might not be up to his shins in paperwork, but I am up to my neck in dirty laundry."

"Don Henley's or Bitter Sweet's?"

Gus made a face. "Ninety percent my own."

"Not nearly as much fun."

"I hear that. Thanks for the food."

"Thanks for cooking it. It was good stuff. My stomach has never been more sated."

"I'll call you later."

"I'll call you," Shawn insisted, touching the side of his head and getting that intense, fake-psychic look in his eye. "I sense that you may become overwhelmed by the smell of stinky socks and require resuscitation at approximately 9:45 this evening. You're free to take home Lassie's smelling salts in case you need them."

But Shawn was a bit lonely after Gus went home. There was not enough information on the death of Mr. Waterstone to bother thinking about. He reviewed the three notes plopped down in his journal, wrote in some extra thoughts, and managed to waste another hour.

Carlton liked that specific time of day. Once the sun had gone down, the world was a perfectly peachy, pinky, orange-flavored little palace. Dusky and unfamiliar in the hollow shadows. Even his backyard, that he professed to know so well, now seemed unreal and secretive. Aside from cars passing on the nearest busy street, it would've been a quiet, lush sphere, full of insect sounds, the intermittent crinkle of leaves snapping together. It would've been—but the deep resonance of music floated through the screen door. Stepping up to it, Carlton had a nice view into his residence: the dining room, the table cluttered, Shawn's shoes forever underneath; past the dining room, the cool glow of the television screen highlighting Shawn. He had a bare foot perched to the lip of the coffee table in front of the sofa. A bare leg, in fact, all the way up as far as Carlton could see. Boxers, probably, behind the arm of the chair. Shawn appeared to be clipping his toenails. An act that Carlton insisted be done in the privacy of the bathroom. It was the unsexiest thing in the world to see another man clipping his toenails.

"Hey, Lassie, there you are."

Shawn was not clipping his toenails. By the quick wince and hesitant lower of his foot from the table, he'd been inspecting a fresh injury. A nearby zipped plastic bag, full of ice, corroborated Carlton's assessment.

"What happened? Jeez, I can't even leave you alone without you hurting yourself."

"Just stubbed my toe. I'm not used to this new layout we've got going on here." He gave the rearranged furniture an indignant gesture. "Can't you ask Victoria for the chair back?"

"Ha, no. No, Shawn, I can't do that."

"Then we need to go get a new chair to replace the one you're not man enough to ask your ex-wife to return."

"It was her chair. And I'm willing to go shopping for a new one. I told you I was."

"Getting you out to the mall is like what's-his-name's quest into the Arctic."

Carlton swung onto the sofa. He turned on the lamp, then pulled Shawn's foot close to him. Along with a lot of red, hot under his fingers, was a laceration weakly bleeding.

"How is it?" Shawn asked, dramatically grabbing Carlton's hand. "Is it serious, Doctor? Do I have minutes to live?"

"You'll survive. But I'm going to have to cut the foot off. And, alas, Mr. Spencer, we don't have any anesthesia in the house. It might sting a little. And you might pass out from the pain."

Lassiter could make great faces. Particularly evil ones. The Mad Scientist Face could scare small children—and, in fact, _had _scared several small children, although Shawn hadn't been able to prove it. Lassiter's grip raised up Shawn's leg, his ankle, his calf. He hissed and snarled and started giving gentle nibbles, then bit tightly into a kneecap. Shawn scrambled to get away from him, if that was the game they were going to play—but his escape plan met with disaster when Carlton kissed his bitten knee.

"Just for that, you can heat up your own dinner." Shawn's slap was more affectionate than alarming to Lassiter. He let Carlton roll off him. With the lamp on, he could see his stupid injury clearer. No wonder it had hurt. Blood had been drawn. "So, Lass, my toe's not broken or anything, is it?"

"You'll live, you big baby. Where are the hamburgers?"

"Cow's out back. You'll have to kill it if you want something. I've never had a broken toe before. You sure it's not broken? That's a pretty mighty chair. I know it has it out for me."

"If it's all bruised and disgusting tomorrow, you can go see someone. Remember, you actually are one of the hundreds of millions of Americans with health insurance."

"Yeah, thanks to you. All right. If you say I'm not going to die from blood poisoning in the middle of the night, I'll go put my pants on. The sorriest phrase in the English language, by the way. 'I'll put my pants on.' Lies, lies, all lies!"

Shawn treaded gingerly down the hall to find his pants. Not jeans. It was well after seven, and, on a Sunday night, everything good in town had closed an hour ago; there was no reason for proper attire. He swiveled, kicked, hopped into his pajama bottoms, avoiding another shock of pain in his foot. As speedily as he could, he returned to the kitchen. Carlton stared out the window above the sink. He had a sip of V8. Shawn stole the one-serving bottle from him.

"If this is all you're having for dinner, fine, I relent: I'll warm up your food for you. If my mother comes to town and finds out you've lost fifteen pounds living with me, she'll give me forty lashings."

"Well, I might've lost fifteen pounds being more active."

Shawn tightened his mouth. He tried to figure out if his mother would believe it. "No. Won't happen. She could never, will never, and I hope to God never, ever thinks we have that much sex."

"Oh, so that's where you hid the hamburgers."

"On a plate in the refrigerator, covered in a paper towel. That really didn't occur to you? Wow. What else do you want? Potato salad? Potato chips? Potato soup? I'm getting a very starchy vibration from you right now."

Carlton reclaimed the bottle of V8. He needed the extra vitamins. If he was going to live with Shawn, if it was going to work, he'd need all the nutritional help a man his age could get. Shawn was spun with electricity. He never stopped moving. For the longest time, months even, when Carlton first encountered the undiscovered species known as Shawn Spencer, he doubted the cryptozoological beast ever slept. Shawn did sleep. But it was just like recharging a battery. Shawn was wired differently than most people. That fact certainly fueled the possibility that he was psychic. Or that he was capable of slipping between the dark matter of the two-dimensional, then out again as if he'd done nothing exceptional. Lateral logic in a vertical mind.

He must've looked like he was struggling to figure Shawn out, since Shawn swooped in and kissed him, then swooped away again.

"What did you find on Waterstone? If you don't mind bringing the office to our peaceful little home for a few minutes."

"I'll give you twenty seconds," Carton said. "Because it'll take exactly that long to tell you that we didn't find anything on him. Not so much as a next of kin or a previous address. He's lived in Santa Barbara twenty-one years. Before that, well, he may as well have existed on Mars."

"I think he's a bit more . . . Neptunian. So nothing, huh?"

"Zilch. Zero. Nada. Null."

"H'mm, that's too bad. He seemed like such a nice fellow, too. So, tomorrow. You'll be at work all day."

"Very likely. What are you going to do, bake a cake?"

"Well, I was thinking . . . that . . . when you got home, we might—might do that shopping thing we talked about. Dream House Furniture is having a good sale—and no interest for, like, a whole year. And I want to look at vacuum cleaners."

Carlton almost swallowed tangy, acidic vegetable juice down the wrong pipe. "Vacuum cleaners? Were you sucking up pine cones with mine again?"

"I didn't say I wanted to buy one. Just said I wanted to look. Now, Lass, what do you want on your hamburger? No tomato. You'll get heartburn tonight if you have any more tomatoes after drinking your poison juice."

They sat together at the small, round cafe table in the dining room. Shawn was pawing through his notebook, most of it in shorthand which Lassiter, even right-side-up, couldn't decipher. He still didn't understand what Shawn saw in those mess of scribbles. But it was like the thought of Shawn slipping through dark matter—into the immaterial, into ether—then back again. Shawn could do anything. Shawn could do as he pleased. Just as long as he came back. That was the most important part.

Carlton knew it'd be pointless to ask Shawn why he wanted to look at vacuum cleaners.

Every day was an eye-opening experience for Lassiter, since every day he learned something new about Shawn. On the second day of their explosive, substandard association, Lassiter had learned that Shawn Spencer said very random things.

"Hey, remind me to call Gus at 9:45, would you, in case I forget?"

You know. Like that. Shawn never forgot anything.


	4. Chapter of Vacuums

4.

Gus had long ago given up any notion that he understood the motives behind Shawn Spencer's actions. Somewhere in the backdrop of childhood memories, Gus had seen the Shawn of boyhood disintegrate into the warped, gifted, imaginative—at times offensive—Shawn of the present. Gus didn't envy any of their friends—and he couldn't possibly envy the figure he now thought of as "poor Lassiter"—the work, devotion and brainpower required to keep up with Shawn. In the last couple of years, Gus had struggled to remain comprehensive of his own twisting path of life: the suddenness of being single soon swallowed up by the suddenness of Juliet, Shawn's unmitigated interest in taking jobs outside of Psych with the same irreverence he showed every other job, then having a wife and important things to talk about with an actual adult, and finally the odd dynamic of a social circle dominated by the solar Shawn-Carlton dynamic.

As for the Gus-Shawn dynamic, that seemed intact except for a few rough spots here and there. Shawn did not always create the potholes. Gus knew he was capable of making them himself, without really meaning to. But Gus was the first, though thankfully not the last, who'd ever openly tolerated Shawn's ever-shifting mind. Juliet had once compared Shawn's quick-paced wit to molten lava, but faster, less destructive. "So really not like lava at all," Gus had retorted. "More like really sharp espresso that's just been poured." Yes, Juliet had said, really sharp espresso burning the gullet and had to be downed fast or it'd be too bitter.

Rather than the normal routine of Gus picking Shawn up at the Psych office or at Figueroa Palace (a.k.a. the police station), Gus found Shawn at home Monday afternoon. Unlike Shawn's previous apartment, little Mee Mee's Fluff *n Fold, Lassiter's house was usually well-aired, smelled like cleaning agents, fresh laundry, breakfast, coffee. Little Mee Mee's had smelled of musty linoleum floor, old shoes, and, if lucky, microwave popcorn. The back door of the bungalow on Sunberry Street was open if the weather was warm enough. Gus found it so that morning, and, without knocking, went in.

He wiped loafer soles on the welcome mat of what Shawn had called "the mud room." A term no doubt culled from his Scottish ancestors off their lofty estate house in Indiana. No one in Santa Barbara had mud rooms. But it lived up to its name, more or less. Welcome mat read "Wipe Your Paws." There was a stable plastic utility shelf full of pantry-style foods, and the washer and dryer, another shelf of necessary laundry implements, including Lassiter's favorite laundry splurge of Snuggle fabric softeners in its array of scents. Gus was unsurprised to hear the washer running. Shawn, he thought, must be neck-deep in laundry. He hadn't been home too awfully long, for one thing. For another, Shawn had actual _chores _ to do, a pact he'd made with Lassiter prior to their agreement to live together. Shawn accepted Lassiter's terms. Who it was that came up with the idea of Shawn doing the household laundry—his, Carlton's, towels and bed sheets—Gus didn't know. Their foresight amazed Gus. He still did his own laundry at home, and Juliet did her own. As for kitchen and bathroom towels, that fell to whomever happened to be doing laundry that weekend. Shawn, influenced by Carlton, wanted to _plan _things. It was simply easier for one person to do all the laundry. The hours of a cop were odd, unpredictable. The hours of a psychic detective were flexible, but hardly stable.

Gus took the two steps up into the dining room. It opened into the living room to the west and the kitchen to the south. The dining room contained its usual mix of Shawn and Carlton goods: Carlton's coffee mug was still on the bistro table, next to Shawn's new mug that read "Kiss the Psychic" along with the dog-eared notebook, a stack of writing utensils, the morning newspaper, and a pullover sweater Shawn must've lately abandoned. The kitchen was still a mess. Shawn's kitchen goods from the apartment were strewn about, with an emptied box, full of crinkled newspaper, lay lopsided on the floor. Two cereal bowls were next to the sink, supplied with a spoon each, and each sticky with the remnants of old-fashioned oatmeal, as was the pan on the stove. A bag of locally-roasted coffee beans rested on the counter. Gus swirled the pot to catch a whiff of the coffee. Pungent, pleasant, slightly fruity: a good light roast, then. Shawn's obnoxious array of magnets mottled Carlton's refrigerator, everything from the lewd to the ancient, the latter being magnets Gus remembered from the Spencers' fridge of bygone decades, like little plastic mushrooms, garlic, celery, and one that said "Maddie's Kitchen." Although it wasn't Maddie's kitchen, that good woman had, at least, made tea in that kitchen and could at any time claim a part of it as her own. Gus straightened a few of the magnets, made the word "SNÖ" out of Shawn's weird Swedish-alphabet magnets, and left the kitchen behind him.

Down the hall to the right lay the bedrooms and the bathroom. At the end of the hall, playing in the daylight, shadows Gus assumed to be Shawn doing something in the bedroom. About to appear in front of the corner bedroom, Shawn himself emerged. His arms were loaded up with a heavy basket of laundry, with a small cardboard box on top of the piled clothes, and a plastic garbage bag shoved into one corner. It crinkled loudly as the two of them stared at each other.

"Hey," Shawn started. "Sorry, I didn't hear you come in."

"I just got here. Still getting organized?" Gus tried to peek into the bedroom, but Shawn's scoff-snort had him tipping away again.

"Don't go in there, Gus, I beg of you."

"That bad, huh?"

"There are unmentionables strewn about. And God knows what's all over the floor. I don't want you to trip and fall and hurt that sweet Lindor ball of a head of yours. Jules would whoop me. Then bastinado will ensue. Then there might be bandicoot rats involved. And in the corollary, people might say something they don't mean. All because I let you walk into that room."

Gus tried to help by taking the box off the litter of dirty clothes. His face was as flat as his expression. "What have you been reading?"

Shawn tightened his mouth, obediently following Gus out of the hall. "I don't know. I was trying to read _The Taming of the Shrew _last night, but I think I'd rather stick pins in my fingertips. I've never in my life voluntarily read Shakespeare, you know."

"Oh, yeah, I know. Where do you want this?"

"There," Shawn pointed to the catch-all—the bistro table—and went into the laundry room. "And now that I'm almost forty, Gus, I'm not going to read any Shakespeare voluntarily, either. I'm old now. I want to reread shit I read when I was a kid. Like _Encyclopedia Brown _and, um, that one with the oracular pig."

Gus found a moment to be stymied by the first mentioning of their nearing the epochal age of four decades. They hadn't really talked about it yet. "It's funny you can remember the phrase 'oracular pig' but you can't remember that those are the Chronicles of Prydain. Lloyd Alexander."

"Funny? Me? Never. Lassiter suggested I rent a version of _Kiss Me, Kate_ and be done with the whole _Taming of the Shrew _thing." Shawn reappeared, basket still in his hands, but filled with different clothes. "I'm just going to hang these outside, then we can go."

"Hang them outside? Aren't you afraid someone's going to steal them?"

"Not even a little. Anyway, if they want my clothes that badly they can have them."

"As long as they're not Lassiter's."

"Some of his socks. Nothing else." Shawn opened the back door—then zoomed back again. Gus anticipated a comment, maybe one telling him to take it easy for a few minutes or have a cup of coffee. Quiet, domestic Shawn was somebody Gus was learning to handle. Quiet, existential Shawn, on the other hand . . . "Dude, I was just thinking how weird it is that my socks and Lassiter's socks are all mixed up now. What an odd world."

"The two of you sleep in the same bed, too."

"Not all the time. If one of us has been eating more beans than he should, it's the couch."

But sleeping in two beds was not as odd to Shawn as the thing about their socks. He thought about it while pinning clothes on the line to dry in the sun. He was more stunned to find that peculiar thoughts like that escaped Gus. Gus didn't think it was strange that his socks and Juliet's socks should frolic about in the laundry together. Gus was prosaic about such things. Shawn tended to celebrate life's seemingly minuscule achievements.

In the dining room, Gus couldn't help but work his way through the dog-eared notebook. Not only was it a glimpse into Shawn's mind, it was an oddment, a peculiarity, that Shawn spent so much time with this notebook, hated anyone to look at it, yet he kept it out in the open for anyone to examine, and much of it was indecipherable to a person's untrained eye. If it wasn't written in short-hand, it was written in longhand in one of the many languages that Shawn's vocabulary of nouns, if not conjugated verbs, was very proficient in. The strange European languages, too—of course. Danish and Swedish and random Italian. Shawn, probably inspired by the new purchase of the magnetized alphabet letters, seemed to be favoring Swedish. In the fresh pages in the back of the notebook, Gus read "ingen" with a line going to "inkrata?" Before Shawn came back, Gus had the notebook back in its place. He just didn't _get _Shawn's path of genius. He'd seen no mention of Mr. Waterstone, only he couldn't shrug off the idea that that last whole page he'd scanned had been all about Mr. Waterstone.

Gus still had no idea why they had to look at vacuum cleaners. The more he bothered Shawn about it, the more Shawn hissed in the passenger's seat.

Inside the furniture store, which did not stock, nor sell, a whole lot of vacuum cleaners, Shawn and Gus were instantly the quarry of a commissioned salesperson. Shawn was flagrantly condescending to her. She failed to notice that he was putting on a show. Most people didn't notice, such was Shawn's easiness with himself, and his awareness of his movements, from blinking to the shy turning-in of his toes. If Shawn had an audience, he could do anything.

"Do you have any nice, fluffy, cushiony chairs on sale? Clearance would be good," Shawn admitted, "but I won't be picky."

They were being escorted in the direction of chairs on sale. Gus instigated a mild round of bickering once the employee had gained several paces.

"Chairs? Why are we here for chairs?" Gus answered his own question. "No, Shawn, no. I am not helping you pick out a chair for the living room. And you are _not _walking out of this place with one, either, so forget about it. If you got something Lassiter didn't like—"

"Not buying a chair, Gus." Shawn saw he wasn't believed and hastily sketched an "X" over his heart. "Promise. Anyway, do you think I really want to ruin our first furniture-buying experience together? Well—not me and you—I mean—me and—"

"All right. But you promised."

"I just want to browse, anyway," Shawn went on, hoping he wouldn't be cross-examined by Carlton later, when he strode to Carlton triumphantly with news that the browsing part of furniture-buying was out of the way. "Lassie hates window-shopping proems. You should've seen him when we were in Barrel Creek. Ah, this is nice," he told the sales lady of the line of new chairs, and squinted at her brass name tag with black letters, "Sandy, is it? We'd like a moment, if that's all right. I'm sure you've seen enough customers sitting down in recliners that it's probably lost its allure by now."

She was reluctant to go, partly because they were so friendly and engaging, a rarity Monday afternoons. Nonetheless, the phone rang and ended her time with them. Shawn immediately fell into the first chair. It tipped back at the arrival of his weight. It was so enormous, so full in the back cushions, that Shawn looked small in it.

"This is an old man's chair," Gus pointed out. "You're not even forty yet. You're not even thirty-eight yet."

"Relax, old man, test out some of these posh bottom-huggers."

Gus, who rather enjoyed the scents of new furniture, did as Shawn commanded. He chose a heather-blue number two seats from Shawn. The two of them rocked gently, listening to the new-wave jazz tinny in the ceiling speakers.

"Gus?"

"What?"

"Does it bug you? Getting old."

"Not really. Carpe diem, Shawn."

"What's fish got to do with it? But you're right, Gus, one day at a time and all of that. I think I'll try this one." Shawn rose, went down the row of fresh chairs to a beige beast dotted in ecru. Gus was forced to try out another chair, too. "You know, when my dad was my age, I was already a hellion teen. I guess it's the disparity of things that makes me think about getting older, and—and—" He wanted to say something about death, but the word felt a bit taboo and contradictory in a place stuffed with new furnishings.

"Your dad's always been an old fogey," said Gus. He tried out the foot rest and the lean-back position of the recliner. "Man," he settled his shoulders into the cushions, "maybe I should talk to Juliet about getting a new chair. This is pretty nice. Are you sure Lassiter wants a recliner?"

"No, I'm not sure. If he dozes, it's usually on the couch. If it's a serious nap, he heads for the bedroom. But that's usually after yard work. And I'm not even sure that applies here. It was an Indiana thing." He'd voluntarily spent time at Lassiter's through the last year, though, when a shift in their relationship occurred—at so fine a point in time that it wouldn't show up on the head of a pin. Just something, somewhere, had shifted. Juliet and Gus's relationship might've started it, but Shawn and Carlton had done their own propelling. Shawn would've liked taking credit for the whole thing, though, in his gut, he knew it was really Carlton's doing.

Shawn lifted from the chair and decided he'd had enough of testing recliners. He shuffled them off to a portion of parlor seats: simple, round-back designs with an art deco flair. He paused in front of one specimen, darkly stained wood at the arms, legs, a bit in the back and the legs. The cushions were blue damask, swirled into copious florals and paisleys.

"Classy," Gus said. "Not really your style." He let a chuckle slip. "Or Lassiter's."

Shawn's brow knitted. Gus wasn't a naturally observant sort of man. Shawn rotated the price tag to him. Four-fifty. Not on sale. He let the ticket flop to its regular position, still eyeing the chair. "H'mm," he hummed before doling an order to Gus. "Hey, go get Sandy. I have a question."

"You get her."

"But I'm busy thinking."

"And I'm not?"

"Gus, come on."

The emphasis of their chatter alerted Sandy, and neither Shawn nor Gus had to leave the chair vigil. She came right over and asked if they needed help.

"I have a question about this chair. A couple of questions, actually. Is there a limit on the number of questions we can ask?"

Sandy glanced at the other gentleman to make sure the talkative one was sane. It seemed that he was—arguably. "No, no limit, sir."

"Shawn's the name, Sandy. Uh, this specimen," he clamped a hand on the armrest of the blue paisley, "I would like to know how long it's been in stock and if you had any more of them and if you did what happened to the others. I didn't really form those as questions, but I can go back and insert questions marks if you'd find that clarifying." He received a stealthy elbow from Gus, causing him to jerk reflexively and mouth the word "What?" with an innocent expression.

Sandy had a good memory, had learned to be proud of her listening skills. She repeated her answers directly in line with Shawn's questions. "It's been in stock since August. We ordered eight of them. Five are still in the store. This one is the floor model, and the other four are in the back room. We've sold three of them since August. Two were sold, to one buyer, last month." Shawn's eyes darkened briefly. Sandy caught on to the scheme. "Are you guys really here to buy furniture?"

"I am here to browse," Shawn proclaimed. It was good salesmanship on her part to be suspicious. "I need a new chair for my house. Not—not _my _house. Boyfriend's house. Boyfriend?" He looked at Gus, who shrugged; this was out of his range of thought or concern. "Man-friend. We need a chair. His ex-wife took the other one. But, other than that, we're really private detectives. Our new victim has a chair like this in his bedroom. I wondered when he'd bought it."

Sandy was stumped, as was Gus. Shawn could hand out too much information in three sentences. He slumped his way back to the first recliner he'd sat in. "And I would like to put a hold on this chair—just for the next twenty-four hours. Don't you think, Gus? This chair? Yeah? I think Carlton will like it."

They finished their business at the American Dream House furniture store. Shawn had glanced at the vacuum cleaners, but even before Gus could catch up to him there, Shawn was turning around and herding them out the door. The specific model he was after would have to be found elsewhere.

Back in the car, Gus started the engine, gripped the wheel, and stared invariably through the windshield. Shawn knew what his problem was.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Gus. You didn't go in the house and you didn't look at the crime scene photos. You wouldn't know that chair was in his house. It could've been full of dollhouse chattels for all you knew."

"So you're trying to prove that a man who bought a new piece of furniture four months ago isn't likely to hang himself? It's a weak argument, Shawn. Plenty of famous suicides are—"

"We're not talking famous people, Gus. One lonely man. That's all. With secrets. And a blue chair in his bedroom. I didn't go in the bedroom. But it looked new in the photos."

"Fine. What about the vacuum cleaner?"

Shawn waved a hand, impatient and wishing they'd get a move on. He hated sitting still in a car. Cars were meant to _go_. "I can't even explain that right now." With his way of thinking, though, Shawn had a destination in mind a second later. "Take us to some discount store, like Target or Wal-Mart. We might have better luck there."

At Target, Shawn found one model similar to one he'd been looking for. He wasn't interested in the components, whether it lost suction or it didn't. He was interested in the height of the wheels. He kept holding his thumb and forefinger up to the rear wheel, then pulling thumb and forefinger away to judge the distance. Using a phone app, he made a note of the acquired information. "All right, I'm done. Let's get something to eat, and you'd better get back to work."

They ate at a small Tex-Mex place near the Psych offices, but Gus was asked if he wouldn't mind taking Shawn home rather than leaving him at the office or at the police station. "Laundry," Shawn said at Gus's wordless gape. "Remember? If I leave it in the washer too long, it's all damp and stinks and wrinkles, and Lassie doesn't enjoy wearing his clothes when they're in that state. I don't know why. I'd better not risk it right now, though. And I have to clean up that bedroom before he gets home."

Gus offered to help. He'd almost rather clean than go back to work, since it was sunny and mild in Santa Barbara for the first time in weeks. Shawn declined.

"I really am afraid of you hurting yourself and me getting blamed for it."

"You didn't used to worry about that."

"You weren't married before," Shawn said, slugging Gus on the shoulder, then zipping out of the car.

He was glad to get inside, that strange, soft feeling coming over him, that he might cry or feel sick or something. As soon as he was in the dining room, he lay out on his stomach in a warm spread of sunbeams shot through the dining room window. If his mind wandered into the articles of growing-up that been bothering him lately, he veered it back to Mr. Waterstone, Christopher Sly, the blue chair, the vacuum cleaner—and how a man could hang himself without compunction. For a man like Waterstone, any stabs of regret would be kept to a minimum. He'd had no family, no friends that mattered. Men like that lived on memories. And when those grew stale, what then did he have? A mutiny against loneliness and old age. A restlessness, since he'd likely thought himself too old to get on with his life and too worn out with trying. Even in Shawn's darkest days, which he remembered now as if a cheesecloth had been placed over it, all dappled and deformed, Shawn had felt strongly that his youthfulness would revitalize him if he were patient enough, if he did a little work to make it happen.

He was a touch afraid of getting old. He did not relish the idea of turning forty—though it was still some time away—because he could not see his youthfulness lingering to revitalize him, if he should face some trauma. The death of his parents. Gus becoming emotionally distant. The improbable but still hateful loss of Carlton.

Shawn listened to the wind wheezing through window screens. After dragging the blue chair, Mr. Waterstone, Shakespeare and Christopher Sly in and out of his mind again, Shawn heard the metallic ting of the mail slot on the front door, the subsequent plop of mail hitting the foyer floor.

Cross-legged in front of the pile, Shawn fished from the wreckage of circulars and magazines a small, rectangular box. In his mother's elegant handwriting, it was addressed to him. The return address was for a pied-à-terre in southwestern Connecticut. Shawn's pocket knife slit the tape. Inside, a card in a bright green envelope, and a package in cheery wrapping paper. The card had a dancing pineapple on it, a bad pun inside, then a note from Mom. Under the wrapping paper he found a blank book with a blue cover, pages thinly lined in gray. Mom had asked him to think of it as his new notebook. "Your other one was pretty roughened up the last time I saw it. Can't imagine what it looks like now. I know you're home safe now from your uncle's. Wish I'd known you'd gone. We might've been able to meet there for a weekend. Uncle Fenz is planning a spring fishing trip to Canada and he might ask you to go out there again. I guess you and Carlton did an amazing job taking care of things! Good for you, Goose! Love to you and Carlton."

Shawn put the card on the table, so Carlton could read it when he got home, though there wasn't a present for him inside the box. As for his dog-eared notebook, he spent an hour in the silence of the late afternoon transferring notes of Mr. Waterstone's case into the crisp pages of the blank book. Anything in shorthand was switched to Swedish, and anything in Swedish was switched to shorthand—just to keep things interesting. He'd drudged his Swedish vocabulary out of nowhere, really—vaguely returned to him through a dream he'd had of friends made in Sweden ages ago, when Shawn had gone there to work a little job of no importance, learned a lot of Swedish, even if everyone spoke English, and learned curling and skiing. The curling and skiing he'd forgotten, since he wasn't traditionally athletic and wasn't very good at either. Languages stuck to his brain like glue. Actions—eh, sometimes. He hadn't forgotten how to take care of horses after being absent at Uncle Fenz's farm for years. And he hadn't forgotten how to make love to another man, after years of being absent from that activity, too. Horses were harder to take care of than Carlton. Horses were pickier. Carlton didn't care what Shawn did to him.

Months of living on his own again at Uncle Fenz's had provided Shawn with the stamina to endure the long, quiet hours at home. People said goats and cats were hard to domesticate, the quickest to go feral. Shawn felt that way about himself. He'd rarely done more than sleep at his apartment, and even then one day out of a week he might sleep at the office, or at Gus's, or on Carlton's couch. At Carlton's house Shawn had always felt at home, and residing there went well with his sense of worldly order, his very biorhythm. Occasionally things would fall out of whack, like stubbing his toe on the furniture, if he wasn't paying attention.

Then rare minutes came along, since he'd come home, that he'd shock himself by suddenly looking around as if in a strange world, in somebody else's body, in someone else's life. He couldn't really _be _Shawn Spencer, standing in Carlton Lassiter's house. When taking a shower that morning, Shawn had had a funny thought of "I have to get out of here by ten in case Lassie comes home for lunch and yells at me for being here." Then laughed at himself when he realized he did not have to leave by any certain hour, that Carlton would be furious at Shawn if he came home and Shawn was _not _there, rather than being furious that he was there. He'd shared the anecdote with Carlton, and both of them had laughed in that uncomfortable, "Can this really be happening?" kind of way. They were not blind. Or dumb. Just love-struck. They were smart enough to know that everything had grown inverted. Adjusting to the not-single lifestyle, to the lifestyle of being taken, "off the market" and other such changes, couldn't be acclimated to immediately. Shawn had taken to the role of psychic detective a lot easier than that of roommate, supporter, pledged lover. That took practice.

At least he had the laundry thing down pat, now. All of Carlton's dirty clothes were washed, some ironed, and neatly put away by the time Carlton came home. He was flushed from the brisk, chilly wind that'd zipped in from the coast, had stopped on the way to get a bushel of yellow daisies and two slices of cheesecake. Shawn put the flowers in a vase, not even sure at what point in the past he had learned where Lassiter kept the lone glass vase in his house—but that's the way things went. Shawn just picked things up. His intelligence seemed to be a series of connect-the-dots, with a large helping of poor-man's prestidigitation.

"What do you want with your cheesecake, Lass? Broccoli? Meat of some sort?" Shawn heard Carlton in the dining room, knew he was close if a bit unresponsive. Shawn fiddled with flowers and remembered the brief time he'd spent as a seed collector in a Kansas prairie.

Carlton forewent food as a topic. It might take him more than five minutes to leave work behind. Waterstone's questionable suicide was the lone case he had right now, and it was hard not to take possession of his thoughts, even as he finished up paperwork on a dozen old cases. But he wasn't without his need to be with Shawn. In the kitchen, he leaned until rested against the side of Shawn's head. "Did you and Gus look at vacuum cleaners? And would you please tell me how a vacuum cleaner ties into Waterstone's death?"

Shawn emitted a series of gargles before committing to one accusatory sentence. "Aren't you catching on?"

"I like your brain," Carlton said, massaging Shawn's hairy crown with fingertips. "I'm beginning to know how it works. One-third psychic you might be, but a third of you is still observant as hell."

"What about the other third?"

Carlton smashed his mouth together, a method of deliberating. How to answer _that_? "A third of you is magic. Acorns and magic wands made of yew. That sort of thing."

"Acorns and yew wands, either that's Harry Potter or druids. I forget which. There you go, Brad, some company." The vase of yellow daisies made a home in the jutting window above the kitchen sink, where lived a philodendron, a cactus, and an African violet Juliet and Gus had given them. "To answer your very probing questions about the Hoover in question, Lass, I'm not really sure where it's going to go, but I'm getting there." He liked it when Carlton hustled them together, squeezed and petted and smooched near his ear.

"I think I can help you with that."

"Oh? How? As far as I could tell, Waterstone doesn't own a vacuum cleaner."

"No, no, you're right. Nothing like it was found in the house. An old canister beast up in the crawl space."

"Looks like one of the droids on Tatooine?"

"Yeah," Lassiter responded dumbly. "How'd—? Never mind."

"Go on. Clearly, this is not the vacuum cleaner I am looking for." Shawn made a Jedi swipe with his hand.

Lassiter wished he had a Star Wars cultural potshot to hurl back at Shawn, but stark deliverance could be as dandy. "It was a little more helpful this afternoon when Waterstone's _maid_ walked into the police station to _talk_ to _me_."

That was a decent way to shock Shawn. It didn't happen too often that Shawn froze at a relayed bit of a puzzling case. Carlton gripped Shawn's jaw and kissed him.

"She wanted to talk to you, too. She couldn't stay long. Busy schedule. But you and I are going to meet her at Tanglevine at six-thirty."

Shawn slowly progressed from the fog. "So—no meat with your cheesecake. And—man, this is so unfair! You get the easy part of the job," he hastily added the appeasing word, "sometimes! I dragged poor Gus around this afternoon for nothing."

"I wouldn't say that. You would've reached an eventual conclusion about the maid."

"I was nearly there. I knew there had to be a maid, damn it. What did she tell you? Anything? Did she tell you who Christopher Sly is?"

Carlton removed plates from the cupboard, joined them with two forks. They wouldn't be able to eat much at the Tanglevine Club—Carlton didn't care for Mike's new chef, anyway—and he wasn't going to let a good slice of cheesecake go to waste. He padded Shawn in the back to lead him into the dining room, into his chair at the table.

"She didn't tell me anything about Christopher Sly. I showed her the note, though, and she said it was Mr. Waterstone's handwriting as far as she could tell."

"Nice and vague of her." Shawn opened containers of cheesecake, worked to put them on plates, and let Carlton defer their case-born chatter while he read Maddie's card.

Carlton smirked and put the card back. "I kind of love your mother."

"Me, too. That's something we have in common. Sit, Lassie, eat your food. If you're not going to talk the case with me, at least let me tell you about the chairs I looked at today." He got the lobe of his ear pinched gently before Carlton took his seat.

"I kind of love you, too."


	5. Chapter of Moth Men

5.

Among Shawn Spencer's numerous, applauded and highly touted talents, being able to balance a blank book on one knee, his other raised to give a less fatiguing hoist to Arm the First, while Arm the Second held a package of ice to a red welt on his cheek, were not in the Top 5 of Talents Extraordinaire. He could, however, hoist a chip of ice back and forth in his mouth without thought, except this: "Man, this hurts like HELL." Because it did.

Into the journal—sorry, _blank book_ (as it is more manly to say blank book than journal or diary or place of epistolary nonsense to a philosophical nonentity)—into the blank book, Shawn tried to piece together bits of his evening. He was not allowed to talk about it. He was not allowed to talk at all for the next twelve hours.

"Man, that HURTS like HELL."

Because it did.

That ubiquitous thought was so aligned with his being that he didn't have to write about it in the blank book. He had other things to "cogitate profoundly."

-x-

Darling Enrico,

Your name is not Enrico, but the name will have to stick for now. Your name, mysterious stranger, will stay mute to me for all eternity. It will mutate as weather and tides. It will be as dreams: fathomless, intangible, seen for an instant and then melted away into the glow of dawn.

When I began my journey tonight, I had a sensation in my gut that told me the demons must be unleashed. Devilment lay in the air, thick as the fog and smelly as Lassie's socks.

Also, there was rain.

Not sheets and sheets of it, but enough to cause the redolence of pavement to stick in my nostrils (which would later be caked with my own blood, woe!) and bring out the creatures of the night who fear their homes are flooded by the new downpour. These creatures of the night that I speak of seem drawn to the light of the Tanglevine Club like moths.

Only, they weren't moths. Because that'd be significantly cooler than the slug-like, human-like beings encountered. Oh, they were somewhat upright, plantigrade, also dim-eyed, dim-witted. But how cool would it have been if we'd walked into Tanglevine Club tonight and been inundated by Moth Men?

It didn't happen. It was hypothetical. Still, that'd make an interesting story, and maybe I can write it with an astrological slant—Saturn and Neptune and Jupiter alignments—and send it off to . . . Never mind. Man-up, Shawn, or this really will turn into a Journal (it is much better if you say it with a French accent: zhour-nelle). You'll be telling all your secrets to Enrico. You know how much that doesn't work for you. Constant feedback is what you need. Unadulterated validation and external justification of your emotions is supportive. Writing into the vast emptiness of a page will be emotionally stifling in the end. Plus, it's not like you have secrets. Well—just that one—and even then they don't believe it as much as they used to.

What was I saying? Something about Richard Gere and Laura Linney— oh, right, right.

On this dark and stormy night in Santa Barbara, we walked into the Tanglevine Club and met with a mess of water-bogged, rain-beaten, spirit-dampened krakens.

"Hey, Shawn."

Also, my dad was there.

Was I surprised? My dad has this method of stalking me which should be reserved for pop-stars and that lady at the Breezeway Bakery (she makes the most amazing coffee-cake/streusel muffins and she really should be a pop-star so I can stalk her, but in that cute, lost-puppy way so maybe she would throw me scraps out of pity). I'm sure Henry Spencer has better things to do than figure out where Lassie and I are spending our evenings. Maybe it's just that we're (me and the old man) getting to know one another better. And Cousin Dee avers that there's something mystical about our Scottish side. (In a word: me. Dad's void of Tartan Bits.) It didn't surprise Cousin Dee to hear that I'd taken to being a psychic detective. It didn't surprise her, the way I wasn't really surprised to see Dad sitting at a stool at the bar.

So I asked him why he was there. "Dad. Hi."

I didn't say I got straight to the question. I equivocate. Especially when my Dad's around and Lassie's within hand-grasping, big-smooching distance. It's weird. It's honestly WEIRD. It should've been a backstory in The Mothman Prophecies, it's just that weird.

We don't talk about it. I mean, Dad and me—don't talk about it. If, Enrico, you do not know what IT is in this case, I'm sorry for you but I can't aedificare right now.

And the new tables and chairs had arrived, making the whole of Tanglevine over into its new saloon style. No more art deco. It was all wooden chairs, round tables, with some people already playing poker and some of those Moth Men Who Are Neither Moths Nor Men sitting at tables looking drenched and seedy. Being drenched increases a person's seediness. True fact.

I was having a difficult time adjusting to the new furniture, the sudden appearance of Dad, that Mike behind the bar was wearing an official Tanglevine Club shirt, which I'd never seen him wear before—and that the place was packed for a weeknight. People in town don't cook for themselves. They don't have to. There are AT LEAST five restaurants per person. True fact.

"Dad. Hi." (Repeat.) "What—what are you doing here? At the bar? On a Tuesday?"

"It's Monday, Shawn."

"And that makes a difference—how?"

"Never mind. I wanted to try out the new chili-style hamburger," Dad said, with Calm Significance. "There's a new chef, and I'm not sure about him yet. I thought I'd come in and," as if to balloon his implication, he shot a glance at Lassiter, "make an assessment."

Dad also hasn't seen much of Lassiter and me outside of work. Even this escapade to TC (Tanglevine Club, so I can quit writing it out—so many letters, damn it) seemed to have more meanings than an Oxford Dictionary.

There was awkwardness. I had an inkling then something awful was going to happen. Though if anyone had pressed me to delineate this inkling, I would've said Dad and Lassiter would get into a fist fight in the next fifteen minutes.

HA! No, Shawn. You were so, so wrong.

Then, thankfully, Mike hailed me and Lass and gave us our table. Our good old table! Still our table, but a NEW table. I gave Dad some parting words. Nothing memorable. "We'll be at that table, and you stay here at your stool. Like a good Pop."

Our table is a table. Not a cool booth like the HIMYM pals, but it's our table, and it's by the fireplace, the piano, and not in the path of servers or guests. All good things. It's sort of situated between the end of Stage Left, into that nook where the piano sits, then the fireplace, the hearth which is brick and protrudes a bit, and that drafty corridor that goes down into the storage room (of nothing exciting, believe me, I've looked) and eventually goes back stage. It hardly looks like the same place it did three months ago. Mike and Mike have done a lot with it. I helped pick out the curtains and a couple of the lights, but that's really it. Mike and Mike (one entity under God) has so far ignored my pleas to put Chili Cheese Fries on the menu. But, seriously, how popular would they be, though? I order them, off-menu, like the elite snob I am. Come on, Enrico, it's not like I don't know the guys and I don't know the chef (actually, I don't know the chef, not really, just that he's a sort of tall, wide person with good hair, and for some reason I expect him to turn around, look at me, and BE Willem Defoe). Cheesecake is fine. Cheesecake brought to me by Lassie is grand. It isn't enough to fill up a man when he's sitting around others happily stuffing their faces.

(How do moths eat? Must look this up.)

Angus was working tonight. We have a good time, Angus and I, talking about our clan sept, but he's a little more into it than I am. He actually goes to Scottish games, owns a kilt and so forth. And his name's ANGUS, for crying out loud. But he's awesome.

"Chili Cheese Fries, as usual, Shawn?"

"Please. With extra cheese. Less chili." Said because I wanted to sleep in bed tonight, not relegated to the ignominy of the sofa. Boo. Sofa. It's for dogs. Dogs with gastro-intestinal issues. Not slayers of mighty evil moths! Who were hungry. "And a side dish of dill pickles. And a little dish of sea salt."

"Right," droned Angus, black eyebrow lifted. "For you, Detective?"

Lassie, at that time, was thinking "What the Hell?" As I am, right now, thinking "How the Hell" as in, How the Hell Can This Hurt So Bad? The next words out of Lassie's thin-lipped mouth: "The same."

I think the world wobbled. Only I didn't pester him about it. Pestering is good for the bedroom, or in the morning when he's jamming up his toast and I'm stirring his coffee, not in TC.

Actually, that's not a True Fact. I would've teased him about it but I didn't have the chance.

The door opened. In came another duo of moths. Plumes sunken under the dredge. Reams of rain having plucked from them their dusty trail. As elaborately as Juliet and Gus planned to tell me (and everyone) that they were dating, and as elaborately as their little wedding-day ruse folded me into its mayhem, I was shocked to find them incapable of planning for sour weather. Neither carried an umbrella. Jules had her suit coat (poly-cotton—it's fine) up over her head. Gus braved being turned into a pool of highly-sweetened chocolate milk by covering himself with nothing at all. Well, his clothes. But, I mean, nothing more than that. He took out a handkerchief and let Jules use it before patting dry his pate. Ah, the little things couples do!

There was no point in avoiding them. I whistled. Gus pretended to be annoyed at answering a whistle, like a lactose-intolerant dog that sleeps on the couch.

Greetings were passed around. Blah, blah, stuff and things. Unimportant. I finally find out why they're there. Why everyone was there but the one person Lassie and I had come to meet. Maids! I don't know what's up with me and maids, but they don't seem to like me much.

So Juliet and Gus sat with us at our table. And then I felt bad about Dad sitting at the bar by himself, and went up to grab a couple bottles of beer (ale, but I don't want to seem pretentious to you, Enrico, only truthful), then invited him to sit with us. Dad thanked me, etc., and I was just grabbing the bottles' necks between my fingers when—

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

I.

Got.

Hit.

On.

Seriously.

Why can't people hit on me when I'm not with someone? Now that I'm madly in love and utterly spoken-for, I'm like this Rajah of Passion, teeming with sexiness. Everyone wants me. OK, not everyone. Definitely not maids.

Also, it was a guy, so I felt a little . . . protective of Lassie's investment in the body of Shawn Spencer.

So did Lassie. It was like he swooped down out of nowhere (from a West Virginia highway, maybe?) and elbowed his way between guy speaking to me—he did have nice eyes and his hair flooped out a little from his forehead, like a unicorn or maybe just like someone who doesn't brush his hair when he wakes up in the morning. Lassie was just—THERE. I think he had a look of rage, but it was definitely a look that sent Floop-Hair into a sickly pallor. Then Lassiter did one of those things that he does best: improvised insults.

"Scram, cow pattie!"

And I felt loved and warmed, also hungry and bit thirsty. Mostly the loved thing, though. Lassiter lingered with me long enough to watch Floop-Hair saunter back to his booth, where he'd been sitting with a group of men and women of equally strange hair styles. It was like Flock of Seagulls had infested the southeastern corner booth of TC. Unpredictability: it's one of the reasons I love TC so much. Back in the day, it used to be a saloon. Only the basement and fireplace are all that's left of saloon days. Then it was a brothel. Then it revamped its reputation to become a restaurant with live entertainment in the early part of the last century. Then it was a speakeasy, with drinking, gambling, dames in furs and men in fedoras, and, so it was said, owned by racketeers. (At first I thought Mike C. said rocketeers, and that had me giggling, until I figured out that he meant racketeers, and I was less amused. But now the image of the old mob boss who used to run this joint is shaped indelibly into Alan Arkin. It cannot be UNDONE.) As Tanglevine Club, it was a hangout from people in all walks of life. With live shows to entertain. It grabbed a faithful clientele of gay, straight and undecided; men, women and undecided, and even though the place has changed a little, and the Mikes don't know what sort of live entertainment they want to do beyond the Friday and Saturday night DJ-spun dance parties (costumes MANDATORY, like a themed-rave) it still brings in that faithful clientele. I love that. I love having a place that's comfortable that's not the police station, home, or . . . no, that's my short list of comfortable places.

Dad was more comfortable with Jules and Gus around. "So, what's everybody doing out here? Was there a surprise party for someone and I didn't hear about it?"

"No surprise party," I said. "Waiting to see if the maid shows up." It must've sounded nonsensical. I got stared at. Naturally, a Clue reference had to be maid. "Mrs. White. With Professor Plum. Or, in a place like this, Miss Scarlet might be more preferable. Looking like Leslie Ann Warren in a tight, green satin dress." My dad was there: I did not mention Ms. Warren's cleavage. It was prime Cleavage-Mentioning space, but . . . I like to think I'm maturing.

Leave it to my best friend to catch the reference if no one else would. "Or the ghost of Madeline Kahn," Gus said.

I gave a moment of silence for Madeline Kahn, God love her. Of course, now I'm devoting my twelve hours of silence to her. So, there you go. There is a piety in silence, after all. More on that later.

Then, as if the night wasn't already crafty enough in its bedevilments, guess who showed up at the table? Not our maid, because that'd be too easy. You'll never in a million tries get the right guess, Enrico, so I'll just write it out: Dobson. As in Officer. And his significant other. His better half. Whom I've never met but have always heard is a nice if bit outspoken fellow. He isn't, really. He has Jupiter in Leo somewhere prominent, likely all by itself in a Fixed House, which makes him a bit animated and surprisingly chipper, but he isn't outspoken. But that might've been because Detective Lassiter and That Dude Known as Spencer (not me) were seated at the table.

And it's a good friggen thing our table is so big. We need it to hold all these people. We were squeezed "ass to ankles" anyway. We talked. Ate. Had beers. Talked more. Then, all at once, Jules, being the only woman present, had to go pee. And Dobson's significant other (oh, God, his name is Mike—just what we need, another Mike!) got up with her, then Gus said he had to go, too—and there was a mass exodus of people rising from the table. A great tsunami of Moth Slayers, all vying for a moment in the public washroom.

Since my bladder is made with Ore mined by Immaculate Mermaids, I did not have to go to the bathroom, but I did go to the bar for another drink. And was hit on. Again. Like magic, there was Lassie, ready to pound his fist into the cheek of anyone leering at me amorously.

"Beat it, cupcake!"

Because this time it was a well-meaning lady who tried to buy my beer for me. (Bottle of water, in point of fact, but that is not exactly fitting with the saloon, Dark and Stormy Night theme. Poetic license is balls when you have a conscience.) And Lassie isn't known for calling strange women epithets that have something to do with edible goods. But this woman had her hair piled up into some conglomeration that supported his cupcake theory: color, dazzle, beads, lace, cloth—and her shirt, too, was chocolate-cake brown but a stripe of cream across the shoulders (note to self: Neiman Marcus?) so she had the impression of a frosted cupcake. I did not, however, want to eat her. I didn't even want to lick all the frosting off the top and put it back.

It was a very flattering evening for me. Hit on, twice! The second time was a truncated attempt, since she didn't get farther than a sideways, Katie-Holmesish smile and the words, "Hey, cutie, can I buy your—" Enter Lassie's verb + epithet. Exit Cupcake.

Also, this is important to the story, so pay attention, Enrico. There may be a quiz later.

When our friends started returning to the table, I decided I would go. Must've been the power of suggestion. Or timing. Or psychic powers. Possibly all of the above.

Dad caught me by the arm as I went by, said something about heading home. My replies were short, swift, with lots of nods. If I knew my father, he'd still be there when I got back.

The bathrooms are in an alcove in the upper back corner of the restaurant. The section is called Hank's Corner, for good reason (read on). There's a phone booth, old-fashioned, of course, with a candlestick phone (with a ROTARY DIAL, I am not even kidding) and a phone book not quite as antique as the phone but almost. There's a potted plant (a ficus, I think, the Victorian horror known as the rubber plant) named Hank. It's his place. Hank's place. He is a brooding, unsocial plant, with a bit of a pervy streak, so that is why he is over by the bathrooms and phone booth. People make out in the phone booth all the time. For real. There's actually a little plaque hanging in it that says, "Kissing Booth." I haven't managed to get Lassie in there yet—Lassie needs a lot of room when, or if, he decides to give it all he's got as far as making out goes. He's tall and lanky and needs room for his elbows to do their elbowing, and I'm wide and I don't like to be cramped in a corner.

In fact, Hank's Corner is the only spot in the whole of TC that I'm not really comfortable in. It might be Hank's scowl. Or his funky smell. It might be the air fresheners in the bathrooms. It might be the bad lighting, which turns the phone booth into a kissing booth. Maybe it's because I know one of the racketeers from the 1920's was gunned to death in that corner. Nah, probably not that. I don't know what it is, but I don't like that place.

It's the quietest part of TC, too. Dishes clang in the kitchen, around the corner and through the door, but Hank's Corner is quiet. One likes to hear one's lips at work in the Kissing Booth. And there is something self-actualizing about listening to the toilet flush at your back, like you've done a meritorious act. Usually, the sound of water running to clean hands, the smashing of starchy paper towels to dry clean hands, the occasional ambient noise of the restaurant, the intermittent rhythms of music if someone puts another quarter in the jukebox—those are all the noises I ever hear.

Tonight, fitting with the Dark and Stormy Night theme, I heard the faint sound of someone weeping. A woman. It was otherworldly—and kind of beautiful.

It was coming from the woman's bathroom. It left me with no choice.

I nodded at Hank, as if he'd selected this moment to conspire with me. The perverted king. "I'm going in," I declared.

In I went.

Inside, leaning over a sink, a woman of darkness, an air of impenetrable mystery about her. I wanted to help her. She looked like such a sorry kid, I couldn't help but want to help her.

-x-

"Shawn, that's not what happened."

Shawn zipped his head up from Enrico, as fast as he could without sprouting fresh pain in his facial injuries, or the pangs in flesh at his sides. He was lucky he hadn't taken a fist hard right into the kidneys. He'd be looking at kidney failure—maybe—and die like Jean Harlow. But not platinum blond.

Carlton had entered the bedroom to freshen Shawn's little pitcher of ice water, check his cuts and scrapes and bruises. Overall, Carlton meant to be a nuisance. It wasn't often he got to show how much he cared by A) being a nuisance, B) ministering to Shawn's boo-boos, C) being especially needed by Shawn. Not only was Shawn planning to milk his aches for all they were worth, Carlton was already planning on it, looking forward to it.

He found a clean, unhurt place on Shawn's forehead, made a show of wiping it off with the washcloth, and finally punctured it with a brief kiss. Shawn's twelve hours of silence, regardless of what comedic goddess of the silver screen he'd dedicated it to, was beginning to bother him. Silence—also meant no kissing. Who made up these rules?

The twelve-by-eight white eraser board held a new message. "I'm telling the story."

"It's not an accurate story."

Shawn wiped away the old message. He wrote it out so fast—Mercury in Gemini—that dialog seemed to crop up between them. "Hello! Lass! Stories are NOT accurate!"

"It's no wonder you're not a cop."

Lassie took that moment to spin a pun on his own word, copping a feel up Shawn's thigh. It brought a result: Shawn kicked him in the hip, trying to get him out of his side of the bed. He was not going to take this argument lying down He was going to take it lying down, literally—it hurt too much to move. But he was going to argue. Just because he couldn't talk for the next twelve hours! By a quick glance at the clock, it was ten hours and fifty-eight minutes.

Shawn swiveled Enrico under his left butt cheek. Once upon a time, it would've worked to keep Lassie away from it, but these days Shawn's backside was prime real estate. Lassiter grabbed the journal before Shawn could do more than hammer the white board flat against Lassiter's shoulder. He must've hit it just right: the board's framing snapped off. Carlton laughed. The slapstick comedy, the disappointed, shocked look on Shawn's face—pure and priceless entertainment.

With a hurt ankle, a busted tongue, a fat lip, a sore elbow, multiple contusions up and down his back, Shawn was in no place to tackle Carlton for the safe return of Enrico. He whined. Speaking, no, he couldn't do that—but he could whine.

Carlton flipped through the front free-end papers to Shawn's crawly script. "This is the journal your mother just sent you, isn't it?"

The white board said it all in two of the most useful letters of the American alphabet. "F. U." And, below it, a little heart, just because.

"It was a dark and stormy night—" Carlton's eyes snapped. "It was partly cloudy and mild."

Shawn scratched away at the board. It came up in strange letters that Carlton accurately assumed were Swedish. "Fan fitta."

"I am not asking what that means. But if you need something fanned, Shawn, I will get to it later."

Lassie wasn't without his bumps and bruises, either. Moving about wasn't the issue it was with Shawn. His sore knuckles were the direct result of having protected Shawn, and, as far as Lassiter was concerned, he'd won the Hero of the Month award. He did choose to sit down, more to the edge of the bed. It would require a lot of energy for Shawn to swat him from that spot. Shawn had had enough of the teasing, now busily applying himself to fixing up the white board's frame. The pieces snapped into place. He retrieved the marker and wrote out:

"Fine, Detective Smarty Pants. You tell the story."

Carlton shimmied comfortably into the big pile of pillows at his back. His bruises were chiefly centered around his sternum, clavicle and shoulders. Five in all, as he'd counted them up in the bathroom while changing out of his ripped wardrobe. The help he'd given Shawn to change out of his clothes had been more heart-wrenching than funny. Shawn could whimper with the best of them. It was like untangling the matted fur of a long-haired kitten. And, unlike a lot of the Show and Tell of Shawn's emotional fits, Carlton sensed that the whimpering was authentic. By the amount of grit and fire back in Shawn's eyes, and the sentences penned to the board, his temper had improved. Now he was angry, frustrated.

Carlton picked up Shawn's lucky pen, used in the dog-eared notebook for "divining," and scrambled through the five pages to the place Shawn had left off. Tell the story! Carlton could do that. Fully planning to design heroic qualities upon himself, of course. He _had _saved Shawn, although there wasn't much he could've done to save him from smashing into the table. Carlton needed another second to figure out which story-telling style to choose. It'd been a long time since graduate school English classes. Shawn cleared his throat to rush the decision. Finally, Carlton scratched the paper with the pen nib.

-x-

I don't know how you approached the woman in the bathroom. Probably how you've approached strange women all your life.

(Shawn's elbow jabbed Carlton. A big black mark scarred the _zhour-nelle _paper.)

I can imagine that your dialog (one-sided!) went like this:

"Hi. I'm Shawn Spencer. Part-time psychic for the Santa Barbara Police Department. I couldn't help but feel drawn to this place, as I am drawn to your sadness. You know, the poet Pablo Neruda once wrote: 'No sadness may cross this threshold. Through these windows comes the breath of the world.' I imagine that's why I was drawn to this place, at this moment. To open the windows and let the breath of the world touch your face."

-x-

Shawn crossed his arms tightly across his chest. As if he would ever, EVER quote Pablo Neruda. Embarrassed by the niceness in Carlton's narrative, Shawn whipped out a message on the board: "You think I'm sweeter than I am." Then he wiped it off for this: "I did ask if she needed help."

Carlton went back to the story. He used his imagination every day at work, just in a stippled, belted way, with notches that drew it tight. He had to imagine the many different ways people committed crimes, the how, the why. All his life, he'd liked those two question words the best: how, why. Applied to everyday sciences, they were nothing, merely circadian rhythms. Applied to people, however, How and Why became negotiators, and vivid, dank tunnels into the recesses of the human psyche. After years and years of chasing Shawn, sometimes walking next to him, sometimes actually a step ahead of him, Carlton had built an awareness. So there might not have been a Pablo Neruda quote spouted in the public washroom of Tanglevine, but there would've been softly-spoken words, the appeal of wisdom, the strength of chivalry. That was part of Shawn's method.

-x-

You have an unbreakable ability to find yourself at the center of things. It's like you're a universal Emcee, running the circus all by yourself. How these things find you, I don't know. Whatever you said to the weeping woman in the bathroom, you said it the right way, as you would introduce the flying trapeze act or the lady who dances on a prancing horse's back.

You were gone so long that I wondered if the darkness of Hank's Corner had gotten to you again. True fact, Shawn. I've caught you standing in that place a few times, staring into space, seeing things, no doubt, that I can't see. I was on my way to Hank's Corner when I spotted you coming out of the women's toilets with a sniffling lady close to you. You looked up at me. She looked up at me. She wasn't as scared as the last time I saw her, but she her face was a mess and if I had no memory for details I wouldn't have recognized her.

"Kalea," I said, surprised to see Mr. Waterstone's former maid. "You are here—and you've met Shawn."

Kalea looked at you. Now there was a big fat identity badge on you, large as a bull's-eye. "So you're Shawn Spencer."

"Guilty." A wave of the hand, innocent expression zipped into professionalism. "Let's go sit at our table, have a couple of ginger ales—I sense you're a ginger ale person—and you can tell me all about anything you want." You snapped the handkerchief out of my pocket as you escorted Kalea out of Hank's Corner. "I'll take this. She needs it."

In about five minutes, I'd wish for my handkerchief when my nose started to bleed. But never mind. One message in life, Shawn: Chivalry—always chivalry!

As you'd predicted, Henry was still at the table. Juliet and Gus were there, too, along with Dobson and Mike. Full table! We shimmied Ms. Kalea into a recently emptied booth. The dishes gone but the crumbs left behind along with the tip. You flashed a sign at Mike B (B for Barman), and he brought up the ginger ale. Kalea, like most in Santa Barbara (or the whole world) was using her maid job as a stepping stone. As I told you a while we were on our way to TC, she'd known Waterstone a couple of years. She was hired through an agency to clean his house twice a week. That's what interested me: TWICE a week. Not once. Why twice? How much of a mess could one old man make? But I didn't have a chance to ask her when she came to the station. I made a point of asking it then. While you "read" her, or do whatever it is you do.

"Did Mr. Waterstone have a lot of visitors?"

I could tell in a second that you disapproved my common line of questioning. "We're trying to find out if he was as a good of a bridge player as I suspect he was."

Why do you say things like that, Shawn? GRR. It's so IRRITATING. Now she was focused on you and your "POWERS" and not on the actual COP at the seat who was looking for good information.

"You're speaking to him? Right now?"

"Only very faintly. He doesn't talk loud."

"He didn't talk loud in life. He was . . . very soft-spoken."

"I sensed as much. Let me ask you something, Kalea—what a pretty name—Hawaiian, right? Yeah. Thought so. I spent three weeks working at a Maui pineapple farm. Absolutely fantastic. All the pineapple I could eat. Anyway, that wasn't the question. I wanted to know how you came to work at Mr. Waterstone's, if I can ask. And your agency, what's it like? I realize that's two questions, but bear with me here. These things just come to me."

Insert my automatic eye-roll. Insert here the information Kalea gave you about the agency. I will write this down in the Actual Police Folder when I get to the station sometime tomorrow. Please note that I said Sometime Tomorrow, since I have a feeling I will be throwing my alarm clock at the wall in six hours. I was more curious when Kalea said this:

"You know, it was actually a psychic that told me I should be a maid for a little while. She said it would help me find my way. That I would meet interesting people." Kalea waved a little, well-jeweled hand, then played with the ginger bottle again. "It wasn't you, Mr. Spencer."

"Call me Shawn, please. Mr. Spencer's that nice-looking fellow with the rapidly receding hairline at that table over there. Are you in the habit of listening to psychics?"

"No," Kalea snickered. "Not at all. I think they're a bunch of fakes. No offense."

"None taken. Sometimes my significant other thinks I'm sixty-seven percent fake, too. You learn to deal. So, you're not in the habit of listening to psychics. How'd you wind up listening to the one who told you to work as a maid?"

"I ran into her. At the grocery store. I'd just lost my other job—I wasn't good at it anyway—and—it was weird but all she did was look at me, and touch my wrist, just for a second, and it was like she knew me. She said some stuff. I don't have to tell you all of that, do I?"

I shook my head. It would just be a lot of psychic mumbo-jumbo.

"Okay, good. The next day, I missed a traffic light that I always make, and it was right at this intersection where there's this strip mall off to the right. In the strip mall was the domestic help agency. I figured it was some kind of sign. That afternoon, I cleaned Mr. Waterstone's house. His previous maid had just quit. I don't know why. I never asked. Mr. Waterstone and bosses at work never said."

You never ask the questions I think a person should know to solve a crime. Instead of asking if she'd ever heard Mr. Waterstone mention Christopher Sly, or if anyone suspicious had ever lurked around the house, you ask this:

"What was the name of the grocery store where you met the psychic?"

Because, YEAH, that seems vital. I don't even remember what she said.

Then it was the time when all hell broke loose. Groomsmen of the apocalypse and women clothed with the sun and—and I do mean ALL HELL.

Police report says it happened like this: Guy A at bar bumped into Guy B. Guy B didn't like it much, shoved Guy A. Guy A falls back into Lady A. Lady A smacks Guy A. Mike B tried to intervene. Guy B tips over glass of beer in direction of Lady C. Mike B sees that this is turning into a brawl, calls for Mike C. Mike A (Dobson's Mike) and Dobson try to help break up the rabble. Henry tries to help. Juliet rises to help. I rise to help. Ladies A - C are cat fighting with each other. Guys A and B are fighting with Guy C, who got the spilled beer all over his crotch. As figures of authority try to tamp the rough-housing, it escalates instead. Soon enough, there are fists flying, bodies flying, chairs cracking, glasses smashing, tables breaking!

In the middle of this, you and I manage to get Kalea out the door. "Don't leave town," I said to her, before she scurried off—and I was hit on the back with an airborne chair.

So how did you get that cut in your tongue? An uppercut Mike C wanted to give to the guy in front of you. It landed on your jaw instead. One hard incisor zipped right into your tongue. No stitches. But no speaking for twelve hours.

Your injuries aside—it was honestly the most fun I've had since we helped Mr. Brandt and half the denizens of Barrel Creek recover his pig from its destructive downtown romp!

-x-

Carlton closed the blank book, tossed it to the end of the bed, but continued to toy with the pen. Shawn had solved many cases with that pen.

"So, Shawn, what is the big deal about the grocery store? Why did you need to know that?"

"To know where Kalea lives."

"You think she's involved?"

"Hell no," the sign said.

"Then why?"

Such a favorite question of Carlton's. If left to his own devices, eventually Carlton would figure it out. But Shawn didn't have that much time. While it might be true that Mr. Waterstone killed himself, and there was no murderer to find, there was still the murder of Christopher Sly to solve. Assuming, of course, that they ever found out who Christopher Sly was. Shawn wiped the board clean, penned a fast message.

"Because I want to talk to her psychic. Again."

"You know who the psychic is?"

"Psychics always know each other."

"Very funny. At least thirty-three percent of you knows thirty-three precent of her. Oh, man!" He thought he knew who the psychic was, too. He groaned and slipped downward against the pillowy cushions, his hands at his abdomen, his eyes staring into the peaceful pale green bedroom walls. He tried to find his Place of Inner Serenity before unleashing the toxin known as reality. He heard Shawn finish up the sentence, and, reluctantly, read it.

"Lady Olga."


	6. Chapter of Filler

6.

Carlton made good on his threat to ignore his alarm clock when it blared the next morning. Under normal circumstances, Carlton didn't need the clock to announce its existence, and that of morning, to wake himself up. Internal timepieces had been a part of Carlton's life since high school. When, as Shawn learned, life had taken a rather dark turn for Lassiter. "With me, it was get up in the morning, not think so much, and get my ass to school—or I'd never graduate." There was always a wisp of a rebel lurking in Carlton somewhere. Only on rare days did the Rebel In Wait leap from the panoply and do something ridiculous, like topple the clock off the nightstand with a deliberate whack.

The oddities of last night continued: Shawn was awake, and Carlton proceeded to go back to sleep. It was weird being out and about, roaming the hallways, steal into the lone full-bath in the house without running into Carlton. They were always vying for their little bit of space in their little-bitty house. Shawn had the luxury of not needing to be dressed for at least two hours after rising from bed. Life without a timetable allowed him to make coffee, make toast, shout at Lassie in the shower to see if he wanted any extra-special victual to start his day.

This wasn't anything new.

They'd only inhabited the same domicile for the length of a television mini-series, that was true. Shawn had been an unwanted guest many times before, then a somewhat tolerated guest, and now a desired house-mate. It was through one of his "unwanted guest" stays at Carlton's picture-perfect bungalow that enabled Shawn to note the difference in their relationship. One warm, bright Saturday morning in June, after days of fog and drizzle, Carlton wanted to go for a jog along the beach then out to breakfast—and Shawn just happened to be a willing participant. Shawn went, lacking judgments, intrigued, waiting for the cartoonish piano to drop on his head but nothing so violent ever happened between them again, except for some grunts and growls and hollers that were part of the marital landscape.

But waking up and roaming the picture-perfect bungalow at eight o' clock in the morning, without shadowing Lassiter, or predetermining which coffee mug Lassie might want to take delicate slurps from, left Shawn feeling odd and vacant. The tussle the night before—which he gleefully named in his head "BAR FIGHT! OMG BAR FIGHT!"—had acted as a powerful cetrimide. Any other time that he had Lassiter to himself all morning, he would've illustrated romantic inclinations: breakfast in bed, leisure bath, the opportunity to get dressed or leave the clothes in the closet for the next two to fourteen hours. Their union together on an Indiana farm had gone a long way to establish their functionality. Even as Shawn made his way into the kitchen that morning, he was thinking "Breakfast in bed, inspection of wounds, then we have to go out to the barn and feed the horses . . ." Of course, it dawned on him a moment later that they were not in Indiana, that there were no horses, that he flipped on the light over the stove at a house in Santa Barbara.

For all that, Shawn did what he could to make the morning a nice one. After all, Carlton had saved Shawn from being pile-driven into a table, though no force in the world could've stopped their good friend Mike from hitting him in the mouth. But, well, there you were. A tongue laceration was meant to be. Shawn's improved tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he made pancakes from scratch, with actual flour and eggs, mixed by a spatula. (No one had been around the first time he attempted to make pancakes, when he'd mistakenly grabbed a whisk instead of a spatula, then found out that whisks and chunky batter do not really go well together. He was still trying to figure out what one actually _whisked_.) It was nearly nine when he heard Lassiter's mobile singing loudly in the bedroom, answered a few measures later. Breakfast in bed was nulled as soon as Carlton appeared in the kitchen.

Shawn got his face and tongue inspected. Carlton's frown deepened Shawn's worries. His twelve hours of silence not exactly up yet, he was unable to spout questions but give a motif of befuddled expressions. Carlton fanned them aside. He was still feeling invigorated from the bar fight. He still couldn't believe they'd been in a bar fight.

"But I have a feeling Internal Affairs isn't going to like it." Then, sitting at the small bistro table, a plate of pancakes in front of him and Shawn across from him, Carlton perked up. He'd been in a bar fight. With Shawn, Henry, O'Hara, Dobson and Guster. Internal Affairs was going to have more of a headache than a field day. "Guess I'll put up with them. It's their paperwork, not mine! I suppose you'll be off to Santa Ynez today?"

Shawn was determined to get a meeting with Lady Olga, one way or another, if she didn't already "know" he was coming to see her. He nodded, and, reacting quickly, reached for the board and its dry-erase marker. "You don't have to go. I'll con Gus into taking me."

The images of Guster and Juliet in the barroom brawl the night before seemed to dance in front of their matched gazes. Along with visions of sugar plums came the review of Gus hiding under a table in the corner, while his wife proudly hitched up her sleeves and socked a villain in the gut. Shawn was too occupied during the fight to get a good look at anyone, being most worried about his old man and Lassiter, after the swift but necessary departure of Kalea. He'd spotted Gus once, screaming, scurrying like a frightened field mouse, beneath one cracking table to another nearer the proscenium. The campaign had centered itself in front of the bar. The stage was safe. Once things had calmed down, with a lot of people too beaten up (a couple too unconscious) to continue, and when the inevitable paddy wagon and blaring cop-car sirens pealed through the air more rigorously than thunder, the stage had been the one place in the whole restaurant that was tidy enough to hold a conclave of civilians dishing statements to officers, and where the Queen of Figueroa Street stood and looked down upon her legion of once-beleaguered soldiers. It had not been a pretty sight, overall. But just something about it . . .

Shawn and Lassiter started to snicker.

"I'd almost pay to see what Lady Olga has to say to you and Guster," Carlton said. The white board responded. "Yeah! I can't wait!"

Forty-five minutes later, food eaten and dishes put away, Lassie getting ready for work, Shawn was on the verge of calling Gus when he heard a familiar engine's roar in the direction of the stumpy driveway.

Forget about Gus, he said to himself. What is Dad doing here?

Henry never encountered a problem speaking on his own behalf. With Shawn, communication had always been strained. Not strained so much as log-jammed. Through a lot of struggles, a lot of bouts of insomnia and zoning out during late-night infomercials, Henry Spencer had learned a lot about himself in the last eight years. Shawn's return to Santa Barbara had never tasted of permanency. Only in the last couple of years did Henry think Shawn really would stay. Only in the last couple of years did he want Shawn to stay. They'd never have the carefree, easy-going relationship that he'd seen of enviable father-son duos. But he did have the ability to note where he and Shawn were the same—and see where they were very, very different. Knowing the differences let them avoid falling into potholes. The potholes led to conflict. As Jedi Master Yoda might say, conflict led to suffering.

Shawn was not suffering. He looked like he'd been hit in the face with red and purple paintballs, then forgot to wipe off the dye in time to keep it from coloring his skin. But he wasn't suffering. In the lawful whirligig of the world, as long as Shawn was all right, Henry felt that he'd done something right in regards to raising Shawn. And, anyway, Maddie had warned him that Shawn was going to be an independent kid—strange, unconventional, but independent. It didn't occur to Henry until later that Maddie hadn't meant _monetarily _independent. Just—that other form. Shawn could've gone Ivy League. He could've been talked about in featured articles of _Forbes_. He could be hobnobbing with what was left of the Kennedys. But he wasn't. He followed his own path. Once in a while, that path through undulations and tunnels crisscrossed with Henry's. He felt they'd recently crawled out of one of the tunnels and were now skipping idly through a meadow filled with sunshine. In less allegorical terms, Henry recognized that he and Shawn were in one of their mellow, harmonious phases. As long as they didn't talk about Carlton. So far, Henry had let himself sip from the golden chalice of semi-denial. For all he knew, Shawn was still sleeping in Carlton's spare bedroom. His palms tended to sweat as the thought tipped sideways, when it castigated him for being an idiot who believed such a safe, innocent thing. Denial, like male-pattern baldness, has its dignities.

Carlton was nowhere in sight. Just Shawn opening the screen door and leaning into the frame, arms crossed. Plum and tomato streaks were highlighted in a fresh beam of sunlight across Shawn's forehead and cheekbones. The two raised small, timid, uncertain smiles at each other.

"Nice war wounds, Dad," Shawn said, his manner congratulatory. They were not his first words in twelve hours. Those had been said to Carlton before becoming muffled, and speech made pointless. "I'm proud of you. Sir Pellinore couldn't have done better."

"I bet you think I don't know who that is."

"I'd be shocked if you didn't. I know you've actually read a couple of books in your life. The ones you're not using as coasters. Want some coffee?"

"Not particularly."

"I thought it might, you know, help unhinge your jaw—handsome bruise you've got there—and you can tell me why you're here."

Henry's stupefaction exhibited in the form of a hesitant step inside the dining room. "Ah. You forgot."

Shawn wasn't surprised he'd forgotten anything. "Lassie's made me swear not to remember everything that happened yesterday. I can remember the fight. And talking to Kalea. Before we got to the Vine, I don't know, the rest of the day seems like a giant smear. Did I ask you to come over? Does it have something to do with what's in your pocket?"

The bulge in his dad's sport coat pocket, on the right-hand side, hadn't gone beyond Shawn's notice. His senses and well-being might be temporarily impaired, but he wasn't going to be shown-up. He still wanted to get the best of his father, win their tired little games.

Out of the pocket came a heavy stack of thick, small, square papers. As soon as they splatted to the table, Shawn saw what they were: about forty different sheets of interior paint color chips. Immediately, Shawn remembered. He'd asked his father about the paint chips. Against the wrath of Lassiter, Shawn wanted to paint the dining room, the living room—or, Heaven help the dingy walls—_both rooms_. Dad had just painted the upstairs hallway, the bathroom, and had taken his sweet old time about it, too. Going through paint chips galore to finalize color choices. Shawn had had the notion that Dad would lend him the chips. It'd be hell trying to explain it to Carlton. No doubt there'd be a fight. Maybe not exactly on the same scale as last night's, but the premise would be similar.

"Thanks," he mumbled. Any real thanks would come later. Shawn couldn't resist pawing through the sheets, finding a bright, non-neutral shade—something turquoise—and holding it up to frame the living room ahead of him.

About the paint, that it was about freaking time one of them thought of getting rid of the last of the rain-cloud walls in that sunny bungalow, Henry attempted to unleash mundanities. The dining room was cottony white, the living room the pale gray of nose debris. About the only personalizing touches had been committed by Shawn's inherent messiness and a pile of flip-flops by the dining room door. There wasn't much of Detective Lassiter in that place, but that might've been the point, too. Henry spotted a greeting card sitting upright on the bistro table, between the pineapple-shaped salt and pepper shakers. Looked like a card Maddie would send. Denial again reared. Henry was interested—but dignity was more potent than curiosity. Certainly would've helped that proverbial cat if it'd had more pride than curiosity.

"You can have the chips, Shawn, but I'm not lifting a finger to help you paint this place."

"Your help isn't the help I am hoping for. H'mm, I kind of like this blue." Shawn tilted his head to get another look at it.

"It's too aqua. It'll clash with the couch. If you want a blue, you'll have to try something more in the violet range. Is Lassiter going to work today or what?"

"He is. He's in the shower." Shawn listened for the sound of water through the pipes. "Or out of it. Even you're running a bit late today, Pop."

"I feel hours behind," Henry admitted, flipping through color selections. "Maybe even days. Been a long time since I've broken up a fight at the Tanglevine Club."

"Which implies that you have before."

"That I have. It was back in the late 70s. People were pretty happy back then. Not too many worries in the world. Not like we've got now. But, still, get a group of people together, and, well, things happen. Funny, you know, I guess if I look back on it, I never would've thought the Tanglevine Club would still be around. I didn't think you'd want to go back there, either, Shawn. After what happened."

"To Summer Preacher? I can't express in how many ways I'm over that, Dad. The Mikes had that room gutted and rebuilt. I tried to talk them into giving it to me for an honorary office, but that didn't land. Summer wasn't the first person to die at the Vine. If the place goes on for another hundred years, I'm guessing she won't be the last, either. Odd, though. She was my last case before—before I went to Indiana. A suicide. I come back, and what do I get? A suicide."

"Lot of unhappy people out there."

"Anything new on Waterstone?"

"Not sure there will be. The guy's so neat he puts Mr. Clean to shame. You spot anything at the house?"

"Just the missing Shakespeare volume," Shawn said. "I wrote it in the report."

Henry was unimpressed. "I saw that. Next time you write things in a report, Shawn, don't leave it hanging in the side margins. I didn't even take it seriously."

"Of all the times I was trying _not _to be funny!"

The minuscule rift elevated their tempers, then died out altogether. Shawn shoved his hands behind his back. He rather liked the world better when he had a legitimate excuse to keep his mouth shut for a dozen hours straight.

"Find out if the volume is the one with _The Taming of the Shrew_?"

"We're still working on it."

"But let's assume that it is."

"I don't like assuming anything about Mr. Waterstone."

"Aw, Dad. Break my heart, why don't you? Assumptions used to be your bread and butter. What happened?"

"Let's just say I've learned a thing or two since then. Waterstone must've been a lonely man. No trace of an address book among his belongings. No cards from relatives. Nothing penned in the calendar."

Shawn drew his mouth tightly across his teeth, then remembered with stinging eruptions that he still had a cut on his lip. He'd been in motorcycle accidents, car accidents, shot, chased after, the intended victim of explosions—and he couldn't remember ever feeling so bad when waking up the next morning as he had after a bar fight. He gave his father a sidelong inspection. At least this would be one anomalous memory they'd be able to share. They kept one another at a distance, but crowd pugilism is a father-son bonding experience.

"What about old calendars?"

"Didn't see any. And before you say anything, yes, the garbage was checked. Even it was tidy."

"A man without friends," said Shawn, raising his eyebrows. "Or a man pretending he doesn't have friends?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, kid. At this point, I'm willing to believe he really was a nobody, a man mentioned at the beginning of a famous play and then left out of the rest of it. What? Why shouldn't he be Christopher Sly? It fits. Sort of."

In a distant direction, Henry was alerted to Carlton's animated whistling. He did not want to see Carlton at home, didn't want to witness Shawn and Carlton together more than he had to.

"I'd better get going." He offered the excuse, edging his way to the back door.

Shawn had an impulse of understanding. What he witnessed annoyed. He was a little sorry for his dad. That was the annoying bit. He was a little sorry for himself, too. He was like a sponge, soaking up information, ideas, philosophies and motives with the ease of an O-Cel-O tossed in the ocean. Dad was more like a brick in a puddle. Despite that, Shawn was thankful Henry had been his father. Who else would've shoved the address of an Indiana farm in Lassiter's pocket, and, essentially, said, "Go get him!" then completely ignored the whole thing? Only Henry Spencer.

Shawn followed him outside, trying to think of a nice sentence to drop that didn't sound ridiculously saccharine or suspiciously sarcastic. Nearly at the back of the carport, Henry whipped around.

"Will you be at the station today?"

"I have a lead I'm following."

"And?"

"And what? I don't want to talk about the lead. You know I get superstitious about things like that. I start talking about it, getting all braggy, and then the lead disappears." He thought back to his previous case. Maybe Summer Preacher's blood-bath suicide in the Vine's upstairs room still haunted him in a mild way, like the lingering after-taste of garlic. "Or winds up dead. But I might come in later. Depends."

"Depends on what? You going to let the real cops do the work on this one?"

"Not on your life. Just depends if anyone brings in goodies from the Breezeway Bakery."

Henry threw up his hands, spurted, humbugged, then, without warning, clamped Shawn on the shoulder. "Glad you didn't get your sweet tooth knocked out last night."

"And I'm glad you didn't get your last few hairs ripped out of your head."

"D'ah!" Henry gave the air another vicious swipe, giving up on Shawn. As he fitted into the car, he watched Shawn wave goodbye and then veer around the corner. Probably just as well Shawn had Carlton to look out for him. Henry wondered how independently Carlton had forged his twisted life path, and if that had somehow led to Shawn sleeping in the spare bedroom. Because, of course, that's exactly where Shawn had to be. The spare bedroom.

Shawn hid the stack of paint chips in the kitchen's junk drawer (which every kitchen has, and it still amazed Shawn that Carlton had let innate organizational skills slack long enough to promote slatternliness to one kitchen drawer). The misuse of wall space in the bungalow on Sunberry Street needed to end. How long had Carlton lived there? Way too long to endure it. In the ream of his previous abodes, Carlton had been happy living among dark gray walls decorated by somber black-and-white art, furniture so stiff because it'd hardly been sat on by fat lazy butts, and pretty much using one dish, a few utensils and one mug over and over again. (He still had the dishes received at his wedding to Victoria. She hadn't wanted them, and a lot of things, after they separated. The dishes were Corelle's pattern of "Quintet." Shawn had found them neatly packed away in a box in the hall closet. Coincidentally, Uncle Fenz had an mishmash collection of Corelle, "Quintet" pieces among them.) Very few rules had been manufactured prior to Shawn bagging up his belongings and starting to play House with Lassie. Shawn had agreed to do the laundry, mow the front yard (Lassiter agreed to mow the back yard), and keep the kitchen somewhat dapper. It was a relief for Shawn to know he never had to vacuum or clean the toilet: Lassie had a maid that came every two weeks. Shawn had also agreed not to open anything that came in the mail for Carlton, including bills. In fact, Shawn was pretty much encouraged to ignore everything and anything that had to do with money. Painting a room in the house so far escaped jurisdiction. Juliet had painted the bedroom and the spare room prior to Carlton hauling his chattels in. But she'd sighed resignedly at the white dining room and pale living room. A lot of the black-and-white art had been replaced by Shawn's vintage one-sheet movie posters. Not by Shawn's doing. He'd come back from The Willows to see them suspended. It wasn't really Carlton's bizarre, dark little house anymore. It never had been. He'd never even considered dedicating a wall to California's Most Wanted. He'd never even set up an office. For the first time since he was a kid, Carlton was actually _living _at his living space.

But Shawn didn't want to take a chance and ruin their symbiosis that morning by discussing wall-painting options.

Lassie found Shawn sitting at the bistro table, scribbling a mixture of Swedish, Danish and English into the dog-eared notebook. He stole a look at Shawn's feet. They told a lot about Shawn's intentions. If he were about to leave, they'd be in socks. If he wasn't planning to go anywhere for a while, they'd be bare. "Briar-hopper blood in me, along with a lot of redneck," Shawn had told him on the first frosty morning that smothered the farm. Lassiter had wondered why Shawn was in a sweater, jeans, wrapped in a blanket, but his feet bare. That morning, in cool but sunny California, Shawn's feet were naked under the table.

"Did I hear Henry? Or are my ears still ringing from too many jabs to the head?"

"You heard him," Shawn replied, letting the pen drop down but he no longer bothered covering the notebook's contents. Carlton knew a detective's work, even that of a man one-third psychic, wasn't done completely in his head. "He left already. I see you chose a tie to match your bruises."

"I thought I'd better." Carlton picked at the knot of a bright blue tie smeared in purple and mauve, between the collar of a pale gray shirt—a lot like the color of the living room. He held out the suit coat. "I need you to help me get into this. I can't bend that way this morning."

Shawn held the coat open. Lassie angled one arm down the sleeve slowly, grimacing as it went. "Always thought it took a few too many contortionist's tricks to get into one of these."

"Why don't you own a suit?"

"I do own a suit."

"I don't mean the Don Johnson leisure suit you wore to O'Hara and Guster's wedding."

"In that case, I own no suit. I'm ninety to ninety-five percent sure you wouldn't be able to stand the sight of me in a good three-piece, double-breasted."

There was no hour of the day free from licentious innuendo. Carlton smirked, adjusting shirt sleeves. "You wouldn't be in it very long. Are you sure Gus is going to take you to Lady Olga's?"

"I'm not even slightly sure. He might take me, but I doubt he'll go inside."

"What if he won't take you?"

"I'll ride the bike. Yeah, I'm well enough to ride. Don't give me that look. I'll even avoid all puddles and potholes."

"And I can't understand what you hope to glean from a psychic. A real," he paused, "ish psychic."

"Above the sixty-seventh percentile, is that what you mean by realish? I don't know what she'll tell me. Think you've forgotten something that cops back in the day used to use a lot."

"Persuasion using offensive physical contact without consent?"

"Not assault and battery." Shawn snuggled close to him. Early morning Carlton scent: fresh, clean, with a hint of fabric softener. "I meant an informant. Not the same as a snitch. Just—a person with more information than you can get through usual means. Aren't you familiar with the Wise Old Man in literature archetypes?"

"So, in your scenario, Shawn, Lady Olga's a Wise Old Man?"

"Like Thackery Binx from _Hocus Pocus_. Lady Olga is our Wise Old Man. And with her that's possible on so many levels."

"I was gonna say . . . Well, have fun with your tranny psychic, sweetie. I have to go do all that boring station work. Better than an exciting day. I'll take a dull day after last night. Don't want to risk getting shot at by some punk right after a good barroom fight." Carlton shifted to separate them, but Shawn continued to cling, as if put there by a potent static charge. "Shawn? Really have to go, honey." He started prying Shawn away via elbows. Managing to get them apart by six inches, Shawn floated back to him, and they were a stationary pillar again. "Something wrong?"

"Don't want you to get shot today, that's all."

"I won't. I'll even avoid all possible flying projectiles. How about if I call you later? Or you can call me when you find something interesting from the old one-eyed hag in the marsh. Did you take your pill?"

Shawn flapped his lips, cut and bruises and all. He let Lassie go. The mood lay in ruination now. He'd been on medication again since his penultimate weekend in Indiana, since his insurance coverage started. So far, he hadn't noticed a difference, except that he was a lot more exhausted, had to go to the bathroom with more frequency (Ane, not Deuce) as a result of thirst, and took an interest in food for about five minutes a day. It was like mononucleosis in a pill. If that was the wonder of Ritalin XL, Shawn wanted none of it. He'd rather be energetic and scatterbrained. It fit his daily M.O. Carlton honestly thought a bit of medicine would do Shawn some good.

"It might help you not be so—so spacey. Of course, I love you spacey, too. Really have to go, Shawn." Carlton found a clean, uninjured spot close to Shawn's mouth, left his lips there with squeaky sucking noises, then dashed to the back door. Keys were grabbed from the specified paten on his way out.

Shawn stood there, confused, benumbed, unsure what direction to take his muses. A shower, maybe. Sure, why not a shower? But he was still standing there when Carlton swooped back in.

"Almost forgot." From out of his wallet he fished a credit card. With the color-coordinated theme of the day, it was a bit of blue plastic. Carlton smacked it in Shawn's palm.

Shawn saw his name on it. A real credit card. In his hands. For a moment, he analyzed Lassie for signs of madness. "What's this?"

"Big limit, big responsibility. What if something happened to you and you needed it? Don't spend it all in one place. Or anywhere. Unless necessary." He started off again, delighted by Shawn's blank, surprised face. Psychic, ha! No psychic saw that coming! Then he hustled back, because, under the cool facade, he loved Shawn, and he did like to spoil loved ones. There'd been so few to spoil. "But buy yourself a nice suit, all right?"

The suggestion was worth the utterance: Shawn glowed. "Three-piece, double-breasted?"

"Whatever you like. But," he swooped in for another kissy-peck, "yes." At the door he hollered again. "Love you! Call you later!"

Shawn set the credit card in his wallet—only to return a second later to look at it again. "What a fascinating little thing you are," he said to it. He found himself staring around the dining room. He'd forgotten what he was going to do. Shower? No. Something . . . "Oh, that's right: play with pills!"

Shawn was showering when Gus entered. A slack rapping of knuckles announced his presence to no one. Waiting for Shawn to finish up—Shawn never did take very long showers—Gus sat at the table and unfolded the morning paper. The thermal cup he set in the upper right corner of the A-Section was filled with iced cranberry juice. A tiny round plastic container held flaxseed and oat granola, homemade. He caught the fading redolence of pancakes, but knew his breakfast was healthier, however good warm syrup on fluffy golden goodness sounded.

Shawn was the only person Gus knew that could come out of a shower looking as much like an unmade bed as when he went into it. Living with Lassiter hadn't calmed Shawn's wardrobe selections any, except for that day he showed up at the station in a dress shirt, sans flashy tie, and people kept asking him "Who died?" because he looked to be on his way to a funeral, circa 1985. The farmer hadn't completely gone out of Shawn yet, either. A plaid flannel shirt showed a bit of a white t-shirt around the neck, over jeans with a too-long inseam and whose frayed hems hung below Shawn's heels. Shawn's feet were socked.

"You going somewhere? I thought you'd stay home today," Gus said once greetings were done.

"I need to go to Santa Ynez."

The newspaper flopped and crinkled as Gus dropped his arms, face tight to hold in the explosion. "You're really going to see Lady O? Come on, Shawn. She doesn't know anything."

"That's not the point."

"What is the point?"

"I don't know. But when I find out, you'll be the first person I tell."

Gus trailed after Shawn into the kitchen. Once a plant baby-sitter, always a plant baby-sitter. He stuck his finger in Brad's soil to check moisture content, while Shawn ducked into the refrigerator for a portable bottle of apple juice. A trip to Lady Olga's was soon forgotten.

"You still having—you know—problems?"

"If you mean bodily malfunctions, yes. I managed to eat two whole pancakes this morning."

"And Carlton hasn't noticed?"

"I haven't even been home that long, Gus. Here. Scope this." Shawn gestured to the stretch of cabinet between the doorway and the stovetop. Upon it, rows and columns of pills.

Gus's eyebrows lofted. Shawn was acting strangely OCD lately, about odd things. That's usually how it started. Amazing how a sinus infection could take so much out of a person. Shawn hadn't been the same since. Flitting in and out of doctors' offices for the last dozen years, Gus had intercepted bizarre medical tales. One he'd heard had him wondering if the sinus infection hadn't infiltrated Shawn's brain and eaten away at it like some mutant virus. He'd listed his worries to Juliet Sunday night. She'd lambasted him with one fact that he, and a lot of men, were apt to forget: Love did change a person. Shawn had become something that Juliet had described as "spiritual," that Gus was inclined to call "heartfelt." And the stick someone had shoved up Carlton's ass years and years ago had begun to rot. How could these things be negative?

But he was staring at a very neat layout of pills. Immediately upon instinct, Gus picked up one and held it nearer the kitchen window's light.

"What'd you say you were taking?"

"The good doc in Salem gave me an antibiotic for the sinus infection, and got me started on Ritalin as soon as he got a hold of my medical history. Which I wish didn't exist, by the way. You don't know what it's like having something held against you like that."

Gus snorted. "And you think I know nothing about prejudices?"

"Oh, sure, play the Black Card. Only thing is, the pills aren't working."

"Yeah, I have a reason for that."

"You do?"

"Shawn, this isn't methylphenidate."

"Methyl—what?"

Gus blinked. Shawn knew exactly what he'd said, what he was talking about it. "Sure, play the Dumb Card. This isn't your magic stimulant pill, Shawn. This is levothyroxine. And don't say you don't know what that is. You know what it is." Gus used the inside of his forearm to scoop all the pills into the first dish his hands happened upon: a skillet left on the stove. "No wonder you feel like it's not doing anything. It is doing something. It's messing with your thyroid. And I'm guessing there's not much wrong with your growth and development hormones."

Shawn listened to the toilet flush off in the distance. Goodbye, wrong pills! He sunk into a table chair and folded his arms. By the time Gus came back, Shawn was laughing at it. "You know, that honestly had me worried. Although that doesn't explain the missing pills."

"I shouldn't even ask this, since I'll probably regret it, but do you want to expound on that statement?"

Shawn shrugged, kicking his legs out. He felt like dancing, like frolicking! Like he could chase Mr. Brandt's pig through all the Barrel Creek villages of the contiguous United States, for days and days! He laughed again, relieved, the noose of worry loosening. "Just that I thought I'd counted the pills up wrong. But if they were the wrong pills all along, who knows what happened?"

"I'll take a wild stab and say your backwoods pharmacy isn't getting the job done. Probably too busy using the communal spittoon or banjo-picking. Don't you ever read the information they send home with you about your medications? With pictures of what the pills are supposed to look like?" Gus noticed Shawn's deadpan look. "Never mind. Of course you do _not. _Let this be a lesson. That could've done some serious damage."

"Not likely. I was just tired and less focused than normal."

"You should be on the phone right now trying to get some hillbilly pill-pusher fired."

"That doesn't interest me in the slightest. You know what does interest me?"

"Going to see Lady O?"

"Why do you keep calling her that?"

"Her real name's Orlando. I looked it up. Well, to be honest I had Juliet look it up. I was watching over her shoulder the whole time. Did you know she's fifty-one years old? Orlando-Olga, I mean, not Juliet. Looks good for her age. Also, she has two business licenses. One's for an ice cream store in Malibu. The other is for her less legitimate business of pretending to know the future. You can take a guess as to which one makes more money."

"But I'm not, Gus. I'm not even going to guess. Jeez, why do you even _know_ these things?"

"I was curious. And Juliet wanted to be absolutely sure Lady O hadn't leaped through any legal hoops, you know, taxes and business licensing, that sort of thing. And we were worried that she might try to scam you. Preparation is the happiness of life."

"Thank you, Chopra fortune-cookie."

"Some people cannot be trusted with money, Shawn. And, sadly, especially at your age, you're one of them."

"Can't be trusted with money, huh? Ha!" Shawn took the newly-stamped, still-smelled-like-new card from his wallet. He flipped it between his fingers. Gus plucked it, read it, returned it. He twitched and tried to seem haughty.

"So?"

"I was told to use it in emergencies. And to buy a suit."

"What's the suit for?"

"When Prop 8 passes. Again. Without an appeal." Shawn scanned Gus for a reaction. Prop 8 usually sent Gus into a half-seizure. Shawn tended to fair a little better whenever it was mentioned. "Dude, I'm kidding. I don't know what the suit's for. I don't think I've ever owned a suit."

"I'm glad you've come to see the error of your ways, Shawn. That white linen relic you were sporting at my wedding doesn't really count as impressive black-tie-optional attire. Lassiter wants to buy you a suit. Are you going to let yourself be a kept man now, Shawn?"

"H'mm. Possibly." Shawn wiggled his eyebrows up and down to taunt. Was he kidding, or wasn't he? Being a kept man wasn't so horribly varied from his life at present—or for the last twenty years. "Oh, hey! That would make Lassie Louis Jourdan!"

"And who'd I be? Maurice Chevalier, I suppose?"

"Hermione Gingold, duh. We've talked about this. Dozens of times. You know you're the only one of us who looks good in ostrich-feathered hats."

"I don't know if I'll have time today to help you pick out a suit."

"Prêt-à-porter is not in my vocabulary."

"I figured. There's a mandatory meeting with regional suppliers at two o' clock that I have to attend. Worse time of the day to have a meeting, but the upper echelon didn't ask me my opinion."

"Someday they will."

"That's what I'm hoping. But I have enough time to run you out to Santa Ynez. Only if you promise you'll ask Lady O about that ice cream place in Malibu. What's she doing with an ice cream place? I'd like you to find out for me."

"You don't plan to talk to her."

"She scares me."

"You've been scared of transvestites since we put on that Shakespeare show in the eighth grade."

"Brandon Haggard was better looking as a girl than a boy! That just isn't right!"

"At least it wasn't the idea of me in a dress that scared you."

"It wouldn't. It'd almost seem commonplace. I never know what you're going to do. A trait attractive in my wife, but significantly less prepossessing in my best friend."

Shawn tucked his feet into old, stinky Vans. He had to stop in the center of the dining room to be sure he had everything, that he hadn't left the coffee pot on or left the griddle plugged in. He had forgotten to answer Gus's question.

"Will you ask Lady O about the ice cream place?"

Shawn pulled the tricky, slightly warped back door closed, pulled it in even tighter to rotate the lock in place. Since the last time he'd seen Lady Olga, a lot had happened to him. As a member of his periphery circle of friends, he wanted to tell Lady Olga about Indiana, about Lassiter, as much as he wanted to talk to her about certain undecided things in his future—and ask her about that random encounter with Kalea at the supermarket. He tossed the keys, catching them in a mid-air swipe.

"Dear Brutus," he said to Gus. "Men at some time are masters of their fates. Thus, I have a feeling Lady O and I are going to have lots and lots to say to each other."


	7. Chapter of Intuition

7.

Shawn never supposed anything about Lady Olga's home-based establishment of wonders. Beyond the forcefield, a.k.a. the back door, anything, from chartreuse aliens to moth men to insidious dwarves might lie in wait. Into this cornucopia, Shawn slithered, the door slapping shut at his back and his hands reaching for the bottoms of his hoodie pockets.

As it turned out, absolutely nothing waited inside. The soft table lamps, their shades enriched gems of stained glass, were doused. And so were the slew of overhead spotlights that shone down on strange, encased objects from small nooks of the world. The oversized desk Lady Olga used for lengthy sit-down sessions, for hyperbolic astrology forecasts and tarot readings stood empty directly across from Shawn. Upon it, the usual barrage of papers, books, green-shaded banker's lamp, but no sign of anyone, not even of the piratical cat Nikolai. Through the still air shifted a bouquet of spicy scents: sandalwood, lavender, with nasal-burning undertones that only came from lighted incense sticks, and not the less heady and pleasanter stock of essential oils. It was not the stale scent of yesterday's meditations, either; the perfume was new, without the flavor of cinder. Shawn realized he'd arrived at a meditation hour. That didn't excuse him. The sign on the door had said Lady Olga was in. No lock had barred his entrance.

He stepped ahead into the dim domain of a real psychic. He had never stepped beyond the portion of the room marked off by the "direction desk," the shelves of little boxes that stored loose dried herbs and bottled oils. The slimmest of hesitations, and Shawn entered the new world, grimacing faintly as if expecting a booby trap to knock him senseless. Nothing happened.

The major partition waited next, the one of the screen door between Lady Olga's office and Lady Olga's abode. Shawn opened the screen, flailed knuckles to the frame, and about ready to query a hello, his ears caught a distant melody. Music drifted to him from an unknown point. He tried to follow it, inching into the house one shuffling foot at a time. Clearly, this was the kitchen. A galley-style kitchen, old, revamped in recent years but only in the way of appliances and electrical. A peek into the sink yielded more information about Lady Olga than Shawn had never known: therein were two plates, two forks, two mugs. The thought hadn't occurred to him that Lady Olga would live with someone—other than Nikolai. Brow wrinkled, Shawn edged closer to the music's source. He was soon out of kitchen, and either had to go to the right or—he swung his head around to see what waited to the left—or to the laundry room. "Right it is," he mumbled.

It was a tiny, carpeted dining room, a lot like the small square space at home, just furnished better. The music's volume increased, and the source came through the open patio door across the adjacent living room. He saw other signs of more than one presence in the house: music magazines cluttered a coffee table, mixed up with Olga's new age periodicals and stacks of astrology, herb and health books. A comfortable armchair, worn down in certain parts, with a table next to it that held what appeared to be a humidor, a few more books about the art of being manly and the psychology of love. Shawn's brow-wrinkle deepened. Exactly who was Olga associating with these days? A cigar-smoking, chair-sitting psychiatrist with hedonistic and vain attitudes? It wasn't _his _business, of course. Even if the guy wore jackets with suede elbow patches.

His hands crept behind his back, collected there as he stared into the open expanse of the side lawn. Olga's house was at the end of a tiny neighborhood. In the background, tips of the hills visible through trees. The sky was unbearably blue that day, naked of all cloud. The mountains looked dark and uninviting, unlike the bushels of flowers still blooming at the edges of the garden, the plethora of shiny-leaved trees—and a black cat proudly perambulating his land while his mistress, in lotus position, sat on a blanket. Olga had on a fat-brimmed turquoise hat, a pretty halter-strap dress of tropical colors hidden beneath a lacy knitted pullover, beaded jewelry from lobes to ankles. The sunglasses kept Shawn from knowing whether he'd been spotted. But she unlatched a relaxed hand from the top of her knee and flipped the portable radio to silence. Now he knew he was being stared at behind black lenses in bright pink frames.

"I let myself in," he said, hands still behind his back. Other than his parents, Lady Olga was the lone person in the world that could make him feel he should feel ashamed of himself. For what, he didn't know. Identically, she was the one person in the world who'd verbally declared that his charlatan ways had brought the world more good than harm. His intentions were pure, except for a few mistakes here and there—which he could hardly help. Nobody was perfect. The thing about spiritualists, like Lady Olga, and Shawn couldn't deny that a part of the noun fit himself, was this great importance of trying to be perfect, then accepting faults as they occurred. There was always a slip up or two on the quest to ultimate oneness.

As though sensing his discomfort, Lady Olga set sunglasses above hat's brim, and enfolded Shawn in a moment's hug. He patted her back in return, a little uncomfortably. She was warm from sitting in the sun, smelling like apple blossoms and roses. Meditation, sweet smells. Shawn had her put together in a matter of seconds. Before she could say how nice it was to see him back in California, Shawn had to give her a window of opportunity. It was only fair.

"Want to talk about it?"

She stared at him, puzzled for a moment, then slapped her hands on his shoulders, laughing. "No, honey, wouldn't wish to burden you." She started gathering effects from the carpet of grass: radio, blanket swirled in one hand and thrown over her arm. "What was that you said to me last time? Something about skipping romantic advice and going straight to abstract philosophy."

"That sounds like me. But I have learned something. Let me help you with that." He grabbed the incense burner from the top of the patio table, and shimmied the door aside for her and Nikolai.

"What have you learned? I see you're calmer than you were. No more wisdom in you than ever there was. But you get people. You don't like it that you get them. Doesn't change the fact that you do. You want to give me romantic advice?"

"Just this, and then I'll shut up about it: I've learned that you can be wrong and try to prove you're right—or you can be happy."

This brought Lady Olga into a chuckle. She laid aside blanket and radio in the living room. The sight of the manly books, the chair, the humidor, did not pain her as she glanced at them. The fight was fresh enough to make her sore, but not so deep that his things hurt her. "How did you know?"

"First of all, your music is New Flamenco. Not really in my taste but it is considered to be some of the most romantic music in the whole world. Secondly, you smell like roses and flowers. Love spell stuff. Not a spell for him—or her—or whomever—but for yourself."

"I'm not feeling very romantically inclined lately. Good work, though, psychic detective. Now, come into the kitchen. We'll have some peach tea, like my mamma in Georgia used to make, and you can tell me what you're doing here. I am psychic, but, oh honey, I am not _that_ psychic!"

-x-

Tisdag, November 2:a 3:15 PM

Dear June, (today your name is June)

Any possible doubt I had that Lady Olga is a real psychic has been hit with enough photon torpedoes to be completely obliterated. Trust me. The woman's the real thing. Of course, I know that I might've led her on with a couple of strange sentences of my own. Not like "Scratch pad winnebago fundaments" or "Howard's flowers tripping chimpanzees." Not funny-funny sentences. Just funnily formed sentences. That might've pretended English was a verb-second language again. So Lady Olga looks at me over her tea and says, "What's up with you, Shawny boy? Been reading Shakespeare?"

As a matter of fact, I had been reading Shakespeare. Insert appropriate gasps and exclamation points: **!**

Lassie has gobs of Willy the Bard in the Nautical Room (the guest bedroom). Leftover from his college days. No copy of The Taming of the Shrew, but I was reading Julius Caesar, and laughing sporadically at all of Lassie's little notes. He should know all about "Foreshadowing" now, I'll say that much. Also will say that if I can get him out of town ever again, I'll drag him out to some Shakespeare performed outside. It's too bad we missed Keanu Reeves doing his Hamlet. That's life.

Lady O got me talking Shakespeare. I don't know much. She knows even less. Between the two of us, we knew about as much as I knew when I read Romeo and Juliet back in eighth grade. The grand apex of my Shakespearean knowledge, actually. That's kind of sad. I told her that I thought Julius Caesar was "twisted." A bunch of men plotting to kill someone… Yeah, what's not to love? But it has some kick ass lines. It's about men complicating their own lives and hoping the end justifies the means (and, as usual, it doesn't). Frankly, I don't mind reading the play.

It helps if I think of Brutus being played by George Peppard, but as he played Hannibal in the A-Team—so it's really like Hannibal playing Brutus. Brutus, smoking a cigar and wearing a toga, and saying, "I love it when a plan comes together" instead of crap like "This the bleeding business they have done." You can't say a line like that AND be cool. Doesn't work. The rest of the cast would be as follows: Templeton Peck is Caesar. B.A. would be Cassius. And Murdock can play all the other parts. I want Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson in there just for good measure.

Note to older Shawn: The above thought should go into your Tree House Book of Nonsense: A Memoir. It would make the old-fart version of Gus laugh right out of his adult diaper.

My visit with Lady O wound up being more insightful than just plain educational. She felt compelled to read cards for me, and had me choose a deck. I chose some with pin-up girls on them—why not?—and it turned out to be a deck of playing cards. "You can read playing cards?" Well, yes . . . yes she can. I wanted to know how it was done, but we ran out of time. I was a bit jazzed up on super-sweetened tea and the stuff she told me from a couple of clubs and some diamonds laid out in a Celtic Cross.

"You're bored, aren't you?" she asked.

"In what sense?"

"In every sense," her lacquered coral-tinted nail hovered over the five of clubs, then she pulled out another card, a jack of hearts, "but not domestically. You're busy at home. Or about to be. Remodeling, maybe?"

A second card was pulled from the top of the upside-down deck and laid over card six. Queen of Spades reversed. "At work," she amended. "You're bored at work."

I couldn't say anything to this that made sense. Ninety percent of what I say doesn't make sense anyway, so I'm not sure what held me back. "Draw another one," I said, banally, because I didn't like the direction of this topic. It's like floating around in outer space without a jet pack. Drifting. No air. Earth looks pretty, though. Hooray for the view!

Lady O heard the tone of my voice: Danger, danger! Neither of us were in a mood to pry into my private and professional life. I mean—she's already reading my life in a bunch of symbols in a game of chance. I couldn't tell her a whole lot she wasn't already seeing. Her mouth hung in a suspended upward curve, leaving another card on the table. Clubs again. Then spades drawn over card seven.

"Going shopping?"

"Not for anything too outlandish."

"What are you going shopping for?"

"A suit."

"Oh, something blue?"

"I don't know." At this point my heart pattered a little. It happens when Lady O looks at you long enough. I've had the same reaction while standing two feet in front of an alligator, a live one, with no glass partition. "Do you think I should look at something blue? I was actually thinking of brown. Brown's kind of an 'in' color right now. I can wear it with a beige shirt, a pink one, a blue one, a white—and I see you're getting at something else and I am going to shut up now."

Shawn, this is June speaking. Query: Why do you TALK SO MUCH. Dude. Shut. UP.

Yes, June.

"You could just borrow one," said Lady O, gathering up the cards before I got a final chance to observe them. "You're not buying anything else?"

"Maybe a chair. A blue chair. Or are you talking—something expensive? Lassie's not really a Big Purchase kind of guy. And I don't have much money of my own. What do you think we're going to get? Or—oh! oh!—are we going to win the lottery?"

The deck split in two, she shuffled the cards together with her thumbs, pushed them into a stack. "Shawn," and she looked squarely at me, "you like horses, don't you?"

Which leads me to say . . . No, we're not buying a horse. The horse comment seemed to be a non sequitur, completely disassociated with the suit thing, the chair thing, the whole Big Purchase thing. She asked me because—

-x-

The Psych office's front door rattled open. The heel of a boot touched the tile. "Shawn? Are you . . . here?"

Shawn slammed the _zhournelle_ shut and shoved it away. "In here, Jules."

"Ah, there you are."

"Yes. At my desk. Exemplary detective skills, as always."

Juliet flattened her mouth, sticking her arms straight to her sides. "Gus said you haven't been here since you've been back."

"This is my first time here, yes. To be honest, I thought I was in the wrong psychic detective agency. It's really clean. Too clean, in fact. Has Gus been in here—and did he bring the Scrubbing Bubbles with him?"

To test his idea, Juliet ran a fingertip across the top of the chair rail. Dust and grit free. Looking around, ceiling to shelves to the edge of Gus's tidy desk, she gave a nod of approval. "He must've cleaned it. Not with Scrubbing Bubbles, though. Gus is more a Pine Sol person."

"Should've known. Now, into this awkward silence while we stare at each other wistfully, I will insert the obligatory question: What are you doing here—at this hour? Oh, is it mani-pedi time? Should we go for tea afterwards?"

"I'm not here because I was out getting a mani-pedi, though my cuticles _could_ use some attention."

"Gus can massage your cuticles with moisturizer for hours, Jules. Just ask him. Do you want a chair? A blue one? I'd offer you a drink, but since I haven't been here in two months and I somehow doubt Gus has stocked us up on Yoo-hoo and Tab, all's I gots for you is water. Tap or toilet. Take your pick. Don't be shy. Both are equally refreshing."

"Really, Shawn, I'm good. But, um, I will take a seat." She glanced around for a suitable contraption to use. "Oh, let's just—" Gus's desk chair wheeled out with a squeak, then a horrible grinding sound when a wheel met with a really old, disgusting half-nibbled lollipop with fur and hairs sticking on it. "Ew—ew!"

Shawn heard something thunk into the bottom of a very empty wastepaper basket. He didn't want to know what the Ew was about. Maybe Gus's cleaning spree hadn't been more than superficial.

Juliet situated the chair on her own, giving a couple of test jumps to straighten herself, get the creases of her coat and skirt . She grinned and let out a happy sigh. Shawn wasn't sure if she was about to condemn him or console him. He had it figured out as soon as she sought distraction in the case file he'd left on the end of his desk. He let her scan its contents. Her brow furrowed, her bottom lip tightened. Usually meant a question she felt she shouldn't have to ask, but would anyway.

"What's 'Apply Liberally at Sunrise'?"

Shawn cranked his fingers hard around a color-changing gel ball. It squeezed out yellow between his fingers. "The last case I did."

"Oh." She read through his odd notes, some in short hand, and some were not his handwriting at all but Gus's—mostly the end stuff, the follow-through: Summer Preacher's gory suicide in the Tanglevine Club. "How'd you come up with that title? Seriously, Shawn, put the ball down. You're not intimidating me."

"Intimidating you? That wasn't even my course. My hand's cramped from writing. I need to work out the kinks. As to the title, you should ask yourself that question, you and that jokester spouse of yours. Who gets married at sunrise? Nobody. And, anyway, there wasn't a lot of time to come up with a cleverer name, and all I had around me was my tube of lip balm. You're here to tell me to get out of Mr. Waterstone's way, aren't you? I asked you not to be shy. Did Lassie send you?"

"No," Juliet thumped the old case file back on Shawn's desk, "no, he didn't." Her eyes hardened. "The Chief did."

Shawn huffed and squeezed the ball harder. "Oh, really, now? Why could _that _be, I wonder?"

"Shawn, Mr. Waterstone committed suicide. We've run into nothing but dead ends finding anything about Christopher Sly. This isn't a good way for you to use your time."

"What about the missing Shakespeare book?"

"We haven't any proof that it is a stolen item. He could've given it away."

"But why would a guy hang himself from a tree and just happen to leave a note saying he killed someone else?"

For that, there was no answer. Juliet tried to be compassionate. It used to work with Shawn. "It's strange and weird and people who are in that state of mind do a lot of strange and weird things. I understand that you might have—have some—sensations that would lead you to carry on with this case, but, really, Shawn—there _is _no case. The man committed suicide. It's time to let this go."

Shawn chucked the ball to her. "I think you need that more than I do right now. What did Lassie say when Chief Vick drop-kicked me like a Murphy? Come on—what'd he say? You did tell him, didn't you?"

Juliet threw the ball back at him: it splatted against his chest. "Of course he already knew. And you know he'd side with you in just about anything. Where to eat dinner. What sort of bed sheets to buy. Whether or not a guy was murdered or killed himself."

"We are a loving and supportive couple."

"He thinks you're right. He thinks there's more to this case. I don't. Chief Vick doesn't. Gus doesn't."

"Well, if Gus doesn't—let me just get to work on one of the _other _cases I have lying around. Oh—wait—that's right—I don't have one!"

Completely thrown, Juliet settled, slouching, her face stiff. She lacked her usual tranquility. But the look that started to sprout was compassionate. She'd fully assessed him. "All right, Shawn. You know what I'm going to do?"

"Does it involve pom-poms?"

"I'm going to let you and Carlton talk about this. Yourselves." The last word held a tincture akin to a threat. Juliet began to see too much hope and smugness in Shawn. "But don't read much into it. The Chief is working with the DA's office to get Waterstone's death ruled a suicide. The DA will be able to tell if there's enough evidence to proceed with his death as homicide."

Shawn's evaluation of Juliet was not really equal to hers of him, yet he was able to uncover something lurking beneath the film. "Why do you want me off this case?"

She wasn't above being frank. "Because you just got back, and I think you could use a little bit of an extended break. I know you and Carlton had a fight before he left you out in Indiana on your own."

"Yeah, but we made up. Anyway, it wasn't a big deal. Just tension. I know you and Gus never fight and all—"

"Wait, Shawn—who says we don't?"

"Uh . . . Nobody. Nobody ever says anything like that. It's sweet of you and all, Jules, to worry about me. And, fine," he bobbed his head, raised his hand as a gesture of defeat, "I'll back off a little bit on my whole 'Waterstone was Murdered and Shakespeare Did It' angle. I won't even parade an ulterior motive. Parade? Heck, I won't even take it for an itty-bitty walk on an itty-bitty leash! Unless I happen to stumble upon some really convincing evidence to the contrary, I'll hunker in the same Suicide Cabin as you, Chief Cupcake and Guster Smelly Pants."

Her face went into a scowl.

"Sorry, I couldn't think of another name. Wit takes time to emulsify, you know! These things just don't fly out of my mouth—"

"I'm going to hold you to your word." Juliet committed the unprecedented act of spitting into her palm and sticking it out for Shawn to shake.

Feeling the camaraderie, a sort of sibling rivalry with Jules, Shawn likewise spit into his palm and smashed the piled juices together. After separating their hands, neither of them wiped the dampness away. Toughness and pride kept them from it.

Juliet might've plied Shawn into the corner, make him fight or go home, the effort just hadn't sequestered her from all empathy. "Well, how about I give you a ride?"

And Shawn clung to his suspicions. "Why do you want me to go home? And quit this case? And why do you think I need rest? Do I look emaciated or something? I thought I was looking kind of buff myself." He grazed his fingertips over his abs, not quite a six-pack but maybe more like a four and three-quarters. "This is what lifting hay bales will do to a man." He went through a cycle of muscular, Romanesque poses, including an exact replica of the famed Discobolus.

"No reason out of the ordinary," she hesitated, lifting her eyes everywhere but near Shawn, and then mumbled something unintelligible.

"What was that?"

Again, another mumble.

"It sounds very much like you said 'You need to spend time with Carleton.'"

Juliet wouldn't admit it.

"Is there a reason why—?"

"Shawn! Stop being so suspicious! Carlton went home more than forty minutes ago. I'm surprised he didn't beat me here. Do you want a ride home or not?"

Shawn accepted the ride. The Psych office lay quiet after their departure. Soon enough, the door opened and in came Shawn and Juliet once again.

"Yeah, gross," Juliet said, vying for a bit of the running water at the tiny counter sink where she and Shawn were desperately trying to wash away each other's spit from the palms of their hands.

"Jules, Jules, come on! No hoggies!"

"I just want the soap!"

"Gah!"

-x-

Despite Shawn's accomplishments that day, all of which Carlton was willing to hear, he maintained an idea that Shawn was holding in one crucial part of his daily itinerary. Too tired and bothered by an unsolved case sitting on his desk, one that he was not about to let Shawn peek into, Carlton let the evening pass by in its usual manner. A habit of making dinner together had formed while at The Willows, and, back in Santa Barbara, the habit refused to crack or even wither slightly. Carlton was given a task to do that wasn't tiring, usually chopping vegetables or stirring gunk in a pot. Shawn did most of the hard work. If the kitchen were just a bit bigger, he'd get a serious aerobic workout flinging himself from pantry to cupboard to refrigerator to stove.

Shawn discussed his visit to Lady Olga's in a limited way, dismissing Carlton's queries. "I don't think I should talk about it. She doesn't like you much, Lassie, and I'm afraid of breaking our trust. But her card reading for me today was interesting. She said I was bored."

"How's that being psychic? You're always bored."

"That card was pulled when I was thinking about that blue chair I saw at the furniture store. Maybe blue's not right for the living room, after all."

"Was it ever? What blue chair?"

Shawn couldn't remember if he'd told Carlton about the blue chair. If he hadn't, no harm done. He jumped over a conversation that most would instigate. "I liked the style of the chair, it's just that a bold pattern might be better. Especially if we get around to painting some of these somber rainy-day walls you've got around here. It's like the fog just came rolling on in one day and plastered itself to every wall in your house. If Robert Pattinson came in here and stayed against the wall, we'd never seen him again, he'd just vanish."

"I like gray," Lassiter murmured, blandly, defenselessly. "We can talk about chair prints later. It would help if I've actually seen the apparatus in question. What else was in Lady Olga's reading?" A frigid, faraway expression honed in on Carlton, before deadening into a dread. "You're not bored with _me_—already?"

Shawn's laugh was a long series of short, low, melodious bumps. He didn't laugh like that very often; one had to tickle him the right way or make just the right kind of joke early in the morning. Or, apparently, five-thirty in the evening. Carlton felt his ear tugged and his cheek kissed softly.

"No, not bored with you. I'm bored with my wardrobe. I think I might wear your clothes tomorrow. I'm only saying that in case there's something you don't want me to wear, and now you'll have plenty of time to hide it at the bottom of the hamper before I get up in the morning. I'm also bored with not feeling like I'm a real resident of this house."

Carlton wondered to what this sentence appertained. Shawn had dived out of the kitchen, leaving Carlton to stir rice till it was golden brown in the ten-inch skillet. He heard rummaging, a zipper—Shawn's backpack—and into the kitchen Shawn popped once more. Carlton's hand extended to a rectangular bit of plastic, a driver's license. It was nice to see the address of Sunberry Lane under Shawn's name. Shawn had originally used Gus's old apartment address many years ago. Carlton pinched the corner of the card tighter before giving it back to Shawn. He felt choked up.

"It's nice—" His voice actually cracked. "It's nice to see that you really belong here."

Shawn's face turned hot, something that rarely—if ever—happened to him. "I feel very legitimately yours, in case I didn't before. And I got a library card, too!" The library card was flashed, arched through the air triumphantly. But with his heart pounding wildly, Shawn mumbled inaudible words into his hand.

Carlton stopped stirring the rice. Shawn's profile was static, revealing nothing, but his extraordinary eyes contained a hint of guilt's toxin. "What did you just say?"

Kitchen, dinner cooking, argument coming—oh, God, it was like the worst moments of his childhood were rising from their coffins to haunt him. His parents' arguments, his constant need for attention, his attempts to get them to focus on something other than their own troubles. Those combative feelings were not going to help him now. Refocused on the present, Shawn leaned into the counter. He was an adult—of sorts. He could carry on a rational argument. Maybe. If he failed, what of it? He'd dash off to the bedroom and, in a little while, Carlton would come in and they would talk in lowered tones. Why waste the time? It was better to be cool now. And then eat dinner.

"I was hesitant to accept the offer because I thought you wouldn't like it," Shawn started. The original opening was much different: _Don't be angry, but I got an interview for a new job._ Then, his adult mind started overpowering the kid within. He wasn't about to start off a topic this heady and sensitive by telling Carlton not to be angry. Carlton could be as angry as he damn well pleased. Just as long as he got angry _after _dinner was cooked. Shawn's stomach was still bubbling in hunger, under the tighter wraps of anxiety.

"Wouldn't like what? What'd you do? What offer?" A sensation of understanding enveloped Carlton. Either psychic powers rubbed off, or Shawn was becoming an annex to the life and mind of Carlton Lassiter. There was a slight possibility of both. "Mike asked you to work at the bar again, didn't he?"

Mike was always asking Shawn to work at the bar, either covering one of the DJ's who didn't show up for the themed costume party or for a sick mixologist. "Uh—no. You know I don't like to work at places I actually enjoy. Takes the fun out of it. But," Shawn thought that if Carlton had made the guess of a second job, and neither of them were clawing at each other's throats, he might stand a decent chance, "but I do have an interview for a part-time job tomorrow at eleven and I really don't want you to be angry about it because it might have something to do with the case but Lady Olga didn't really _say _it had anything to do with the case but you know how psychics are when we get an idea and—"

"Whoa," Carlton held a palm over Shawn's fast-paced lips, "slow down, thoroughbred." Shawn looked frightened. Carlton's hand dropped. "You thought I'd be angry."

"I know how you like to take care of me and everything, but there's not much going on at the offices or at the station. With Gus married and—God, I am bored." He itched the back of his head nonchalantly.

"I don't _like _taking care of you," admitted Carlton, staring at the rice and wondering if it was golden brown enough. He wasn't too terribly hungry now, but he wanted Shawn to eat. Huh—how about that. Maybe he did like taking care of Shawn. "All right," he said gruffly, "maybe I do. But if you're in hyper-drive all the time, I don't know how Psych is enough for you. And—what case might your potential job be attached to?"

"Waterstone. Maybe." Shawn winced and gave a shake of his head. "I don't know. It could."

Carlton decided to let that go. "Lady Olga put you up to this?"

"Yeah, she suggested it. That's why I think it might tie in with the case. She had no juju vibes about Waterstone, whether he was murdered or really hanged himself. Well, I'll find out. Her cousin Jefferson works in the Club's human resources department. Jefferson!" Shawn struck a fresh pose, gentle fist resting on his abdomen, shoulders square, expression shifted into royal elegance. "What crazy names! Orlando and Jefferson! Anyway, I'm going to see him tomorrow at eleven."

There was no comment to counterpoint Shawn's analysis of Jefferson's grandiose name. "What club? A nightclub?" A shudder shot through Carlton. He really didn't want Shawn working at a nightclub. Dirty, smarmy, smelly, loud. People rubbing on each other obscenely while music played. Bah! No one else was allowed to rub on Shawn that way.

"No, I wouldn't work at a nightclub. The hours would be horrible. We'd never see one another."

Carlton grinned, pleased. He tried to make sense out of the instructions on the recipe card—one of several Maddie had given them in the hopes they'd eat better. What other kind of club was there? Sam's Club. The Wine-Taster's Club. The Hibernian Club.

"The Country Club," Shawn proclaimed.

There was also that kind of club. "The Santa Barbara Country Club?"

Shawn nodded, sweeping chopped onion into the skillet. This conversation was going remarkably well with Carlton. Maybe they would really break down all their brick walls and tell each other _everything_. "That's the place. I might even be able to get a discounted membership for us. How about it? We could golf on Sundays. And smooch in front of everyone at the pool on Mondays. That'd be fun, wouldn't it? I wonder if they have some kind of open sexuality policy. H'mm," Shawn was actually pondering the discrimination policies of the Club before Carlton brought his attention back to that side of Earth.

"What's the job? You haven't said. Pool boy? Cabana boy?"

"_Nay-ay-ay-ay!_" Shawn gave his best imitation of a horse. He leaned into Carlton. "Ever had any stable boy fantasies? You might be able to realize them—but after tomorrow. I'm going to be working with the ponies."

Dinner was nearly spoiled by that point. The smell of burning onions woke Carlton from the hypnosis Shawn had placed on him. Almost madly, he stirred the onions and rice together, poured in the water, and lidded the skillet. Shawn was still plastered to him.

"Your head feels very heavy. Something else you want to say?"

Shawn's nuzzling of Carlton ceased long enough to say aloud his thanks. "I appreciate you sticking with me on this case. No, don't get wriggly. Juliet told me."

"Damn O'Hara. Well, I'm not doing it just for you. I've had an intuitive gut longer than you've had an intuitive mind, and I know foul play when I see it. Waterstone might've hanged himself, but I think Christopher Sly might've been real and maybe he was murdered. Still," he pulled Shawn even closer, "you're welcome. What makes you think you're going to find out anything at the Country Club? I never came across anything of Waterstone's that said he was a member."

"Maybe he wasn't when he died," Shawn shrugged, finding a piece of bread to gnaw on, "but that doesn't mean he didn't used to be a member. I'll try to find out. When can we eat? I'm starving. Oh! Crap! Laundry!" He dashed out of the kitchen, remembering the laundry he'd left hanging outside.

"Don't go too far, Shawn! Ten minutes until supper's ready!"

The back door slammed shut. Carlton buttered the sliced baguette to put into the oven, his head shaking a little at the endearing entanglements of his life. Shawn, bored? How was that even possible?


	8. Chapter of Ties

8.

It was the second day in a row that Detective Carlton Lassiter wandered into the Cop Shop of Figueroa Street way over the new hour of nine o' clock. He had no misgivings about it. Hadn't he just been in a bar fight so wild that television stations ran a snippet it about it in cities as far away as Sacramento? The bruises had mellowed some, sure, but they were still on display—proudly. Nothing like a good contusion to raise a man's machismo and street cred. The newbie beat cops and the fresh detectives were starting to stare at Lassiter with respect. Usually they'd averted his gaze altogether. "They're, um—intimidated by your awesomeness," Shawn had told him. Now they could be intimidated by his outstanding intimidation.

Between the entrance and his desk, he must've caught the Chief's attention, and not by his über-masculine stride—but probably his uncharacteristic lateness. He'd barely had time to sit down in his chair before she was thundering to the front end of his desk. Afraid he would be reprimanded for being late—it seemed the most obvious reason for her scowl—Lassiter gently raised his hands.

"I'm still recovering from war wounds, and I think it's only fair that you take that into consideration before you write me up for tardiness."

Vick's mouth dropped open, her expressions ranging from confused to dismissive. "War wounds, is it? H'mm. Well. I have noticed your tendency to arrive at nine o' five in the morning rather than nine o' clock sharp since you and—" She was being dared to say it, but backed out. "Sometime this afternoon, I expect the district attorney's office will confirm Waterstone's case a suicide. Unless—" Vick let the word hang, tense as a gallows' rope.

"Unless what?" He was checking each pencil in his stack of No. 2's to be certain each had a precise, nearly microscopic point. The gaze on a pencil's graphite tip flipped to Vick, no change in intensity. "Unless what?"

She paused, privately debating. Well—what the hell! Lassiter's insights were often dull, anyway. "What's your gut say about this case?"

He put the pencil down. This was a serious question. Not every detective, head of the department or not, could claim that his chief relied on the input of his gut to sway a case. "It's strange—from every angle. It isn't a cut and dry suicide. Do I think Waterstone hanged himself from that tree? Yeah, I do. Do I think he might've killed someone a long time ago and had been living with that guilt and that's why he offed himself? Yeah, I do. But I don't know that we'll ever find out who that person really was. Maybe he didn't know who it was. Maybe he just knew him as Christopher Sly." He cleared his throat. Unleashing insights substantiated by, well, nothing, really left him feeling uncomfortable. He wasn't used to that side of him yet. "Before the DA comes in, I will try to have the case in an order that will allow him to make the most reasonable decision."

She didn't need to thank him for it. "Even if the DA decides the death of Christopher Sly is something pursuable, it will be difficult to find anyone to convict."

"You're asking me if I'm willing to pursue leads in a cold case."

Vick hadn't been aware of the question. "Now that you mention it . . . yes."

He leaned into his chair, giving off that new wave of insouciance that didn't entirely suit him, but that he and those around him had started observing. The smile he let out was weak, self-satisfied. "Sure, why not? It's been a long time since I touched anything frigid."

"All right, I'll tell the DA." Vick had swung around to head to her office, and only after two steps did she hear the double entendre. At first it puzzled, then frightened, though by the time she'd made it to the sanctity of her office, door shut, did she let out a very loud laugh.

Everyone on the whole floor quieted down. Eyeballs roved to the nearest compeer. It was unnerving.

"Is the Chief inhaling nitrous?" Arlette asked Jones.

Carlton returned to checking his pencils. The smirk on his face was hidden in shadow.

-x-

Shawn knew it was going to be one of those days best spent in bed. Not only had he woken early, practically at dawn, to the amorous persuasions of a very persuasive, very warm, very electric Lassie, but he'd made the always irritating and never intelligent decision to go back to sleep afterwards. He woke in a kind of stupor that no cold shower could eliminate. On top of that, he banged his angle getting out of the claw-foot tub, tripped his feet up in his towel, bumped his forehead, smacked his hand on the bathroom counter, sent his toothbrush soaring through the air and landing—you guessed it—right in the toilet.

Additionally, he didn't have the faintest idea what to wear to his job interview. If it were up to him, he'd go in jeans, a t-shirt, his cowboy boots and his ugly cowboy hat. He was going to be working with horses, after all. But the interview was different. He was meeting Jefferson, Lady Olga's cousin, head of human resources. What would Jefferson expect a potential employee to wear to a job interview?

Desperate, he called Lady Olga at home. A deep, rumbling voice answered. Shawn nearly hung up the voice was so terrifying. What did he have to be afraid of? Lady Olga was fond of her semi-psychic client and friend. "May I please speak to Lady Olga? This is Shawn Spencer calling."

"Shawn Spencer?" The rumbles moved up a few notes, more like a hail storm instead of a direct tornado hit.

Shawn's ego was gratified that Lady Olga had talked to her significant other about him.

"Hang on one moment. She's in her morning meditation."

Shawn took care of the breakfast dishes, checked Brad for his soil's level of aridity, and even had time to start a grocery list, with the pen nib making several circles around TOOTHBRUSH, before Lady Olga came to the phone.

"Shawn, how wonderful to hear your voice this fine morning!"

"God, you are so sweet. We must be best friends forever and ever."

She laughed, appreciating him.

"I didn't know your significant other was Zeus. Is he going to throw lightning bolts at me?"

"He's not Zeus," her tone was a bit scoffing. They were still having a spat. "And I am not a member of Zeus' harem—believe me, honey. His name's Theodore and he works in the County Offices."

"Wow, that's more info than you've told me about your life—ever."

"Venus is sitting stationary in Scorpio today. I feel like it's a sign that I should resist the temptation to become closed-hearted, and open up to someone. The only thing I've been trying to open up is my chakras. What can I do for you, Shawn? You're calling about your interview with Jefferson today?"

"Theodore and Jefferson. You do surround yourself with men who possess very powerful names. And, yeah, I'm calling about the interview. What am I supposed to wear?"

"Wear blue."

Blue. Of course. Lady Olga saw the day in colors. And of course it would be blue. "Blue jeans? I don't have a suit. I can throw together half a suit but not the whole thing."

"That sounds good. Do that. With blue jeans, a white shirt, and a blue tie if you can. Bright blue. Jefferson won't expect you in a three-piece with a boutonnière. He would if you were applying for a position that didn't require the flinging of horse crap. Have I helped, dear?"

"Tremendously."

She wished him luck, and before Shawn could again offer to help with her personal problem, he was repeating her goodbye and hanging up.

One problem with the wardrobe. Carlton's blue tie had gone missing. It was AWOL. They suspected that it lay somewhere hidden in the couch cushions of The Willows, but Uncle Fenz hadn't found it yet, and, ten-to-one that if he had found it he wouldn't know what the heck it was. Shawn entertained doubts that Uncle Fenz would know a suit tie if he came nose to nose with one. Carlton had plenty of red ties, yellow, green, combinations thereof, black, ruby, paisley, and one with little Rudolphs, but no bright blue tie.

Shawn tended to think best while engaged in an unrelated action. He could think about the Waterstone case, curse the DA, and figure out how Kalea and the Country Club tied in all while sneaking into Gus and Juliet's house. He'd snuck into their house lots of times. Oh, loads. But that was mostly during the pre-wedding days, when Gus spent a lot of his nights there though he hadn't officially moved in. Juliet went to bed early, slept like a log, and that left Shawn to bother Gus faithfully between the hours of ten and midnight.

Shawn figured this latest "break in" would go something like this: Infiltrate through the back door, using spare key. Enter house. Take off shoes as to leave no tell-tale traces of his presence. Steal blue tie of Gus's overloaded mechanized spinning tie rack. Don shoes. Exit. Lock door behind. Stow key in hidden spot. Exit premises. Return tie later during a surreptitious "Can I borrow a cup of sugar?" scheme.

Peeking over the sill of a rear window showed an empty kitchen. Two empty mugs were on the counter. Good. That meant they'd both gone to work. He dug up the dummy rock from the flower bed—it was partially buried to deflect from its obvious artificial quality—and found the shiny key within. He left the dummy rock on the rim of the back porch step. The anticipation of entering Gus and Juliet's house without their knowledge was downright priceless to Shawn. It made him a smidgen breathless. He loved this part. It should speak volumes about his persona that he loved letting himself into someone else's house.

The moment he turned the handle and the door opened, Shawn was plagued by a host of terrible, fierce screeches. Unable to stand it, Shawn covered his ears. His rapid mind moved all the more quickly. An alarm! A damn alarm! Set to open whenever anything in the house opened—key or no key!

"DAMN IT!" he cried, trying to hear his own frustration over the ear-splitting whoops only moderately muffled through his hot palms.

A control panel was immediately inside the door, its screen blinking at him. What was the code? He tried the obvious: Juliet's birthday. No. Gus's birthday. No. Wedding anniversary. No. His own birthday—but by then he was out of chances and the alarm panel went into lockdown. He was SOL.

Deflated and tired and knowing he had only a matter of minutes before the cops showed up, Shawn made the most of it. He went into the bedroom to get what he came for. His frustration was egged on by the slow motor of the spinning tie rack. It seemed to take minutes before the bright blue and white crystalline tie appeared. He grabbed it, and ran out the back door, carefully, silently closing it behind him. Just as carefully and silently, he locked it. He thought that might turn the alarm off. It didn't. The seraphim went on with their monstrous howls. No matter. Shawn had his tie. And it wasn't likely that Gus and Juliet would press charges. If the cops arrested him, it was only 10:23 in the morning; he had plenty of time to make it to his afternoon interview.

He could get on the bike and ride off, and no one might ever be the wiser. The idea might've suited the Shawn from ten years ago, but this older version thought he owed it to Gus and Jules to stay until everything was righted. He would own up to the error.

On the last step of the three leading to the house and walkway to the detached garage, Shawn, desolate and ruminative, sat down. Sirens wailed in the distance, sound farther away than they really were thanks to the house's own disharmonious melody. Shawn covered his ears again.

The next he knew, his hands were flung from his ears to ramrod straight above his head. A uniformed officer, Beretta 92FS at the ready, had demanded Shawn lift up his hands. Another patrolman came from behind the opened car door, just as the first recognized the relaxed demeanor of the man on the steps.

"Shawn?"

Shawn smiled apologetically. "Buzz! Hi! Can you turn off this racket? I think I'm going deaf!"

"What?"

"I THINK I'M GOING DEAF! TURN IT OFF!"

"Oh, right." McNab holstered his sidearm, signaling for the noob behind him to do the same. "It's Shawn Spencer. Henry Spencer's kid. Our psychic detective."

Shawn resented the continuous reference of "Henry Spencer's kid," but there you were. For all Shawn knew, people introduced Henry Spencer as, "you know, the psychic detective's dad." If it were true, oh, justice was sweet and vengeance was spicy.

McNab spoke loudly and clearly into the walkie at his shoulder, back to Dispatch. Shawn could not hear a word he said. In another thirty seconds, the alarm went silent. Shawn's ears were ringing. Uncomfortably. He faced the tall tower of Buzz McNab, for the first time feeling slightly ashamed of his behavior.

Buzz felt a little discombobulated, too. "Everything all right here, Shawn?"

"JUST FINE, THANKS! I just didn't realize that Jules and Gus had turned on the EXTRA security!"

Buzz and Foyle both took a half-step backward from Shawn at simultaneous seconds. Shawn was talking like they were yards away. Buzz smirked. It rather suited for Shawn Spencer to be _slightly _punished for one of his innocuous misdeeds.

"All right, just—no need to shout, Shawn. Well, you know the drill."

Drill? What drill? And he wasn't shouting. But his ears really hurt! He saw Buzz signaling to the patrol car. Shawn quit fiddling with his pinnae and paid some serious attention to what was unfolding. A quick look at McNab suggested it was no joke. Even Foyle was helpless against Shawn's pleas for this ridiculous action to end.

"You're taking me to the station?" Shawn's heart hammered, almost beating out the continuous noise in his ears, like broken violins played by dying swans. "Are you for real? You're ARRESTING me?"

"I'm not arresting you," Buzz stated solemnly. He didn't want Lassiter to think Shawn had been arrested. "Let's get you to the station and answer some questions. Come on, Shawn. You know how this plays. Hard way. Easy way."

With Buzz, Santa Barbara's gentle giant, it was likely "the Easy way and the Easier Way," but Shawn refrained from a retort. He would do it the easy way. With a heaving sigh and his heart still thumping, Shawn climbed into the back of the car. It'd been a long time since he'd felt someone's hand touch the top of his head to be sure he didn't hurt himself getting in.

"BLAH!" He said. Was he shouting? Maybe a little. McNab got behind the wheel. Look at Nabbie, being all grown up and acting like the big man on campus! Foyle "called it in" using the radio. Shawn couldn't hear what Foyle had to say—damn those trumpeting weasels in his ears—and he couldn't hear Dispatch's short response. The patrol car pulled away from Gus and Juliet's, Shawn leaving eyes on his motorbike until it was gone form sight.

"THE NEXT TIME I'M THIS DEAF I'D BETTER BE COMING BACK FROM A KYLIE MINOGUE CONCERT!"

Buzz coughed, uncomfortable. Foyle summed it up nicely.

"Lassiter's going to have a terror attack when we bring Shawn in. I'm glad I'm wearing the vest today."

-x-

If there was no such thing as "Shawn and Lassiter," there was no doubt in Juliet's mind that Lassiter would've had one of his grim "terror attacks" anyway. The moment Shawn was dragged in—actually, dragged was a word he used in the Zhournelle, but, in fact, he walked in on his own—he was placed into Interrogation Room A. Soon there was a sporting reunion of Lassiter, O'Hara, Henry and Chief Vick.

"Oh, capital, it's the whole clan! HELLO, FATHER!" He saluted his dad, who had a not-so-healthy pallor. He tugged at the end of Carlton's tie. "HELLO, LOVER!" Only it didn't seem to be as discreetly declared as he'd intended. "COME ON, JULES!"

Why were they all blinking rapidly and backing up from him? Oh, right, the ear thing. He tried to talk normally, pretending he was in a very tiny, dark, quiet room—his imagination was not stretched to the limits there in the Alpha Box.

"Are you really going to press charges? I didn't know you guys had turned the alarm on full blast. Were you expecting me?"

"No, Shawn," Juliet was partly sad as she always was when Shawn inadvertently caused trouble, and partly amused—and mostly grateful that it'd been her house that Shawn had been caught entering. "It's not like that. It's just that we had some stuff still lying around from the wedding that we haven't dealt with yet and we just thought it'd be better if we left the alarm on. We would've told you if—"

"What stuff?" he queried, realizing it was rude and ornery—but he wanted to know. "Can't be cash," he continued, "because the two of you are way too meticulous and paranoid to leave large amounts of cash lying around. Must be an expensive gift. Or bonds. No," he tapped his chin, not knowing how annoyed he'd made his father and Vick, "an heirloom gift, more than likely, something whose worth is obvious only," he swung his hand, "to you."

"I don't need this freak show, thanks, Patrick Jane," Henry griped. He passed behind Shawn for the chance to smack his boy on the back of the head. "Don't do anything like that again."

"I WASN'T COUNTING ON DOING IT ONCE LET ALONE TWICE." That time, Shawn accidentally-on-purpose forgot to lower his voice. He hope it stung his father's ears. He twiddled his fingers, innocence in his face, as Henry glared on his way out the door. Vick, Lassie and Jules remained apprehensive. Shawn rotated his thumbs. "AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR."

Julie turned to Vick and Lassiter. "Can I have a minute alone with our Helen Keller wannabe? Do you mind?"

She asked it of Carlton, but his dander was up and he was anxious about Shawn's behavior. He didn't want Shawn to abandon the job interview. Shawn really needed to have something else to do. Psych was running on the fumes of fumes, with Shawn as equally fatigued of chasing after cheating spouses as Gus was. Shawn would be no good as a homemaker. What could be more perfect for Shawn than working around snobby people with secrets and, on the plus side, horses?

"I'll wait outside the door," Carlton announced, dismissing himself. "In case I'm needed."

"Sorry, O'Hara, but I'm not about to miss this. It's been a rough week, and Mr. Spencer is my only source of free entertainment, outside of anything hilarious that Iris does, though I'm usually the one who has to clean up her funny messes later. I don't have to do that with Mr. Spencer." Vick grinned. Shawn had to clean up his own messes now, at least the ones that Lassiter wasn't involved in.

Juliet shifted. "That's actually fair." She leaned over the table, trying to cripple Shawn with her wrath but failing. "Before I tell Gus that you sneaked into our house—what the hell were you _doing _there, Shawn?"

He stared at the soft angles of her face, into the elusive, washed-out colors of her eyes, and wondered if it could be that simple. He made a mental note of her question, saving it for later. From the jacket pocket, Shawn produced the flash of brightly dyed silk.

Stumped, Juliet leaned back, lips tight. "Gus's Brioni tie? All right," her arms folded, "what were you going to do with it?"

"Wear it." He left the tie on the table, sure that Juliet wouldn't let him have it now. The time for trickery and fun was gone. He really wanted to get back to Gus and Juliet's, get his bike, go home, and get ready for the job interview. "I have an interview as an equine caretaker at the Santa Barbara Country Club this afternoon. I wanted to wear a nice tie. Is that a crime? Anyway," he clasped his hands together but no longer thought of twiddling his thumbs, "the job might tie—oh, a pun!—into the Waterstone case somehow. That's according to my psychic vibrations. The inclinations of the spirit world are just as interested in ending our country's economic slump."

Vick knew the last sentence was a deflection from the Waterstone case, and from the idea of Shawn Spencer putting forth the effort to find viable employment. "Well, it's a nice color for a tie. Goes with your eyes, Shawn. Are you pressing charges, O'Hara?"

"Of course I'm not!" The bridge of her nose wrinkled up. "Shawn breaks into everyone's house at some point in time. He's probably broken into yours."

"Mine!"

"I . . . have not." But as soon as Vick wasn't looking, Shawn gave a lengthy nod to Juliet, whose stony face was beginning to crack.

"But it's just what Shawn does, Chief. I can't tell you how many times he broke into Lassiter's—"

"Would we consider that 'breaking'?" He air-quoted the word for kicks and giggles. "I was merely attempting to build up or satisfy all of our unique physical chemistry, that's all. I can only do that if I eat all the peanut butter and Total Raisin Bran in his house. With that healthy diet, here we are, one very happy couple. See what my presence brings to the homes of my charitable friends, Chief? Love and happiness and really snazzy neckwear." He flounced the Brioni. "Also, Jules, FYI, you have a serious run in your nude control tops."

Juliet threw him a look that clearly stated, "Shut up while you're ahead—and stay out of my underwear drawer!"

"I've seen enough," Vick said, swinging the door open. "Get out of here, Mr. Spencer, unless you're working on a legitimate case. Lassiter, he's all yours."

Carlton wrung his hand around Shawn's throat the moment he slipped into the hall. "Yes, he is." It sounded more like a growl than a hum.

But the lone sentence then zipping through Shawn's mind was something else entirely. _Juliet didn't take back the Brioni tie_.

-x-

Burton Guster had formed an inner pact with himself the moment he knew that Shawn and Lassiter would become "Shawn and Lassiter." If ever he happened to drop by, any time of the day, and Lassiter's car was in the carport, it was probably best to call Shawn before entering the house. Just in case—well, you know. Gus could deal with awkwardness between him and Shawn, nudity and so forth. That scarcely applied to Gus and Lassiter. He shuddered, reaching for his phone.

For once, Shawn's phone was not immediately attached to his person, and it was clear across the other end of the house. He'd been in the bedroom trying to knot the Brioni to perfection. Meanwhile, the phone was ringing in the dining room. In such a tiny house it shouldn't make a difference. Shawn sprinted towards the blurting contraption, worried that it might be Jefferson calling to reschedule the interview—or to cancel it—or to—

"Shawn's phone, Carlton Lassiter speaking."

Shawn's footsteps stopped just as he reached the living room and just as Lassie's voice hit his ears, still cotton-ball stuffed. He'd forgotten Carlton for a hair-raising second. Of course, now there was someone else to answer the phone—but it was strange how often couples don't answer one another's private little mobiles. Well, ten out of ten times, the caller would want to speak to the person who owned it.

Shawn tugged at Lassie's sleeve, not liking the sour expression. Carlton was a bit miffed at Shawn's latest accidental antic.

"Oh, really, I'm so sorry to hear that," Carlton said into the phone, taking swipes at Shawn to keep them separated.

Gus, in his car, was confused. "What are you talking about? Lassiter, is Shawn there? I want to talk to him about what he did."

"Yes, I understand that, but he's been under constant surveillance and I can assure you that he will be taken care of."

"That's comforting," Gus said, meaning it. Then, like a halogen bulb, Gus knew what was going on. "Oooh. He's standing right there, isn't he? And you're angry at him for what he did and you want to roughen him up a little."

"I'm able to confirm thannnnnt—Ow!"

"Did Shawn just bite you?"

"He'll have to call you back."

"No, wait—don't—" Gus heard a subtle click. The line went dead. He had two options: call back immediately or head for the back door. He headed for the back door.

Shawn finally retrieved his phone. "What were you doing?" He swatted Lassie across the chest, nearly ripping off a shirt button. "What if it had been someone important?"

Carlton was chuckling in a warm, liquid kind of way. It was nice to know that Shawn Spencer could get artificially uptight. He nuzzled Shawn's jaw. "It was only Gus."

Conflicted between a desire to let Carlton win the round or sudden retaliation, Shawn kept motionless, thoughtful. A few warm breaths by his ear and the whole scene shifted. "Door," he abruptly announced, regretfully shifting away.

Carlton looked to the front door—which no one but the mail carrier ever used—then to the back door adjacent the dining room. A wince and two seconds later, knuckles rapped on the aluminum frame. Lassiter pinched Shawn's elbow. Not psychic, indeed! Shawn must have a secret magic trick worked out to know when a guest approached the door. Any other day, Carlton would suppose Shawn simply heard the guest's footsteps, but on a day when Shawn's ears were less than perfect, it was impossible to hear any distant, faint noise.

Gus's expression was deadpan when Carlton opened the screen door. "I see you haven't killed him yet. May I come in?"

"Be careful, Guster. He's wearing your Brioni tie."

"My WHAT?"

Shawn had a feeling his bad morning might get worse—or possibly better. "Hello, Gus. Don't you look scrumptious today. You look like a Terry's Chocolate Orange." He did, in a way, wearing a dark brown suit with a hint of red in it, a pale shirt with a drop of peach and a super orange tie.

"Shawn! Take off my tie!"

"What? This old thing? _Pfffththt_. No."

"And don't go wandering into our house until we've told you that the alarm system has been turned off." Gus would let Shawn keep the tie. He was only half-heartedly interested in having it back. Although what Shawn needed a tie for, he couldn't fathom. Very Shawn of him. Gus had run into difficulty anticipating Shawn's maneuvers since well before the late July wedding. "We have some stuff in there that we haven't dealt with yet."

"You're just repeating what Juliet told you," Shawn retorted. "And I am sorry, but I wanted to wear a _blue _tie today, and you know Lassie lost his at the farm."

"I still think Mrs. Shankmyer's goat ate it," Carlton said, truncating the fact that the goat had gotten into the house and had nibbled almost everything it could, a menu that possibly contained a blue tie that had been temptingly sticking out from a couch cushion. He wasn't ready to tell Gus that story yet. "Can you take Shawn back to your house, Guster? Let him get his bike? He has an appointment at one-forty-five. Get him there by one-twenty and we'll all be happy. I think I'll head back to Waterstone's and look around."

"Look around. Classic euphemism for 'snoop.' Hope you turn up something useful." Shawn accepted the small kiss by his mouth, caught the whispered wish for luck, and put on his frankest face for his first alone-time with Gus since before the bar fight. Shawn pressed his hands together beneath his chin. "I'm really, really sorry for the embarrassment I might've brought to you and Juliet by setting off the alarm."

Gus hadn't been embarrassed until seeing Shawn's sincerity. It was weird. Like seeing something he wasn't meant to, something shameful. "Forget it. We should've told you we had the place locked down like NORAD. What's the appointment for?"

"Don't get angry all over again—but I have a job interview. Let's go!" Shawn believed he was a master at deflection. Dump a wild thing like that on your business partner, then, poof—change directions, conversationally and physically. Shawn leaped to the back door.

Gus's heart did a series of flips and flops, tightening his stomach in knots. This was the kind of "Come to Jesus" meeting he'd been wanting to have with Shawn since the landlord dropped off the next lease agreement—one that Gus hadn't signed immediately as he had the last. It'd been hiding in his desk drawer, away from Shawn until both of them could talk about it rationally. He wasn't even sure they could be rational when it came to Psych. But why jump to conclusions? Shawn had taken little jobs before—nothing serious—and always something to do with a case.

"Does this have to do with the case—Mr. Waterstone?"

"You know, I think it might."

"What's the job?"

"At the Country Club. Working with the horses."

"Oh," Gus buckled in, trying not to frown, trying not to display any tell that alerted Shawn. "Rather surprisingly, I think that would be good for you. How in the—"

"Lady Olga's cousin works at the Club." Shawn answered the question before it was asked. "He's going to interview me. Oh, by the way, she told me to tell you that the ice cream place has been in her family since the 1950s, and, yes, it makes more money than her New Age shop. She and her significant other go down at least six times a year to check on it—and get ice cream. It's called Snowy Sands. Isn't that cute?" Shawn knew Gus would be more interested in Lady Olga having a significant other than having an answer to the Malibu ice cream question.

After dissecting ice cream parlors and Theodore, the man in Lady Olga's mysterious life, Gus returned to Shawn's potential employment. "So Lady Olga's the one who thinks this has some tie-in to Rufus Waterstone. I wonder how."

"I'll find out. If I can't find out the first day, I'll find out the first day I'm actually working there."

"You seem pretty confident that you're going to get this job."

"Confidence and belief does a lot for me. I have to get this job," Shawn paused, looking out the window of Gus's little car, feeling a profoundness but trying not to show it. He really did want this job.

As Gus parked in front of the garage, Shawn figured he may as well address the White Elephant.

"Dude, aren't you tired of chasing after cheaters, sneaks and thieves—with the occasional interesting case thrown in about fifteen times a year?"

If Gus had a reaction, it was unreadable. Shawn slammed shut the coffin lid.

"I am."


	9. Chapter of Tests

9.

Freshly shaved, preened and atypically nervous, Shawn was asked to wait in the open reception area of the Club's fourth floor administration area. The whole Club was elegant, outside and inside. The colors were not spa-like, not pastels and beiges, but dark, rich tones, like those of expensive chocolate, overpriced granite and costly exotic lumber. The waiting room was L-shaped, with a fountain—a real fountain—built into the wall. The water dribbled into a dimly-lit pool constructed of charcoal gray marble veined in white, full of swimming goldfish—not koi, but actual goldfish. It was like being in one of those posh houses Shawn spotted on HGTV specials.

He had a folder on his lap, a copy of his resumé within, one that Dr. Prince, the SPBD's part-time human resources guru, had helped mash together in July. Because Shawn had been a little off his nut then. Wedding plans could make a man crazy, especially if they weren't his own but his best friends'. And at the time he was having trouble taking his eyes off Carlton. No doubt part of the whole Matrimony Sickness that seemed to spread like a virus among those involved, somehow, in a wedding. Working on his resumé had allowed him to stay in the station, be around the doctor—who smelled fabulous—and gave him something productive to do. There'd been a lull in Cheaters and Thieves in July.

Shawn didn't have to work too hard to find a distraction. Having grown up with ADD, back at a time when its symptoms were fewer and it was less prevalent, Shawn often found himself worry-free since worries passed by in flashes. This quality had always left him at an advantage over "normal" people. Nerves didn't often hinder him. But now, for an unknown reason, he was nervous. He'd read once that the average human being has about 70,000 thoughts a day. He knew he was kicking it near a 100,000 a day. That was on average. In the last ten minutes, he'd had about 50,000 thoughts—or so it felt like.

He wondered why he was more nervous about this job than all the others he'd interviewed for. Lady Olga's involvement, probably. Shawn was about to meet her cousin, after all. That it might tie into Waterstone. That of all the careers available near or in Santa Barbara, this one—working with horses, being on crisp, clean, emerald green grounds day in and day out—was the only job he could really imagine himself enjoying for the long-term. If it should lead to a crack in Waterstone's case, in the death of Christopher Sly, or into any damn thing that had to do with Shakespeare, Shawn would be grateful.

But if he solved the case, he wasn't going to quit the next day. He wanted to keep working. He'd been sickly idle since getting back from Indiana. Barrel Creek wasn't the hotbed of anything much, but on a farm there was always something to do. It might be the same activities over and over, but Shawn thrived under the routine: he found it hardly as restrictive as he'd supposed—he found it comfortable. It'd be nice to have that again.

His leg started to shake up and down. "Stick to the plan, Shawn," he said to himself. "Highlight the fact that you've just finished a—"

"Mr. Spencer?"

Shawn looked up, shocked out of his delineations. Immediately, the commanding presence of the smartly suited gentleman twelve feet ahead prompted Shawn to stand.

"Mr. Roberts, I presume?"

So far, so good, Shawn thought. Good, firm handshake. Nothing wimpy about it. Shawn couldn't help but mention one personal fact right away.

"I'm sure you hear it a lot, but you and Olga could nearly pass for twins."

Mr. Roberts laughed mildly. "I can't say that I hear that a lot. Not too many people know me that also know my cousin. You could say we move in slightly different orbits. A social circle in this case being too small to convey the entirety of my meaning. But I am fond of her, and we get along very well. Let's head to the meeting room, shall we?"

The resemblance between cousins was rather striking. Jefferson Roberts and Lady Olga each possessed those strange, slightly slanted, almond-colored eyes, enviable cheekbones and wonderful chins. Knowing that Mr. Roberts was fond of his fortune-telling, transsexual cousin helped alleviate several of Shawn's apprehensions. Mr. Roberts might be as fancy as the interior of the Club, but he was also mellow, smiling only when he wanted to, and everything superficial and pretentious slipped right off him.

The meeting room consisted of a wall of windows with a view of the picturesque golf course, a black granite table with seating for thirty, and all the accoutrements one would require to entertain top CEOs, or Forbes Most Powerful Celebrities. Thankfully, Shawn didn't sit at one end of the twenty-five foot table, and Mr. Roberts didn't sit at the other end. Shawn took the end seat, yes, after being gestured to it, but Mr. Roberts sat in the next chair over.

"I really like your tie, Mr. Spencer. Very smart."

"Thank you, sir. I like yours as well." It wasn't lip-service. Shawn really liked the tie. It was a swirled, silky, slightly shiny pattern of gold and cinnamon and a dark, dark garnet. "It reminds me of fall colors back in Indiana."

"Is that where you're from?"

"No, but it's where I took care of a couple horses for the last two months."

-x-

Shawn barely had moment to realize he was at ease with himself, the surroundings and the sally of questions and answers between him and Jefferson Roberts. It even ceased to be strange that he was forming a friendly manner with Lady Olga's cousin.

Then, when Shawn couldn't get any more comfortable, Mr. Roberts rose. His smile was effortless, jaunty.

"Well, Mr. Spencer, would you like to go down and meet our rabble of equine guests?"

Shawn whipped up from the seat so fast that he almost got lightheaded. He hadn't anticipated a chance to meet with the twenty-six horses so soon, or get a peek into stables he'd only ever seen from a distance. "Absolutely."

The distance from the administration floor to the stables was not a short one. Mr. Roberts thought it only fair to ask Shawn which he preferred: a walk to the stables, or a ride in the cart. Shawn knew very much that he would prefer a brisk promenade, but one look at Mr. Roberts' fine loafers and sleek suit, Shawn opted for the golf cart to make the experience easier on his host. As Stephanie, the admin secretary, ordered a cart to wait outside the front of the building, Shawn wondered if the "Walk or Ride" query had been a masked test—and he wondered if he'd scored well. Judging by the unaffected airs of Mr. Roberts, and their unhindered discourse while on the journey, Shawn felt optimistic that his second hidden test had been passed. The first was the most obvious and least obscured of all: whether he showed up on time. He'd been ten minutes early. Check, test one—check, test two.

He learned all about the grounds while a gray-haired urchin of a man, simply called "Captain," drove them down the center of the golf course, "the shortest route to the stables," Mr. Roberts said. Shawn picked up on the way Jefferson pronounced "route" as "root" rather than "rowt." A Georgian influence. Clearly Olga/Orlando and Jefferson shared more than grandparents. Shawn envisioned a whole herd of Robertses marching from Georgia to Santa Barbara in a Trail of Tears fashion, complete with Lady Olga in an 1880's getup and Jefferson in woolly chaps. The daydreams were quickly sutured in favor of the lush environment between the third and fourth fairways, and Mr. Roberts' smooth baritone.

Roberts explained much about the Club's clientele, that they were some of Santa Barbara's wealthiest, richest, and proudest. The Captain grunted, giving a whole shake to his wide shoulders, and grumbled something in an an accent so thick and uncommon—like scouse or caravan Irish—and Shawn couldn't catch a word. It was like one of those nightmares he used to have as a boy when everyone spoke a language he didn't understand, and he woke feeling isolated and tense. But Roberts' chuckling shrouded any sense of insecurity in Shawn.

"He says I should warn you about the man who would be your boss. Waylon Scobie is his name. He's a grizzled old bear, really. Tall. Imposing. Swears like a sailor."

"Wis at udz'ay?" voiced the Captain.

"I meant no offense, Captain."

"Azarite en."

Shawn swallowed, not sure if he wanted to laugh or run screaming. "Well, having worked with the SBPD, Mr. Roberts, there are very few people that scare me. And you've probably never been to the backwaters of southern Indiana. Trust me. Like a whole other world there." He thought back to the night of the intense downpour, the Moth Men at the Tanglevine Club, and how the rain brought out the strangest creatures hiding in proverbial tunnels beneath Santa Barbara. At least he got a smile and soft laugh from Mr. Roberts, and the Captain's shoulders were quaking in one of his creepy silent displays of amusement. Shawn really hoped nothing about Mr. Scobie proved too hair-raising. "Is there a reason that I should be afraid of Mr. Scobie?"

"No reason but that he has the final say on whether or not you're hired," Jefferson replied, cool but not the least bit facetious. "Mr. Scobie has turned down the last six applicants. I don't know if he's simply being picky—or if he's just been in a bad mood thanks to his arthritis."

The Captain's club tenure let him to be honest with those in the admin offices. "Id assin may, wud Id zay iz dut heed bay durn dabesd heed ken wud'em knayz and 'em anz, butter ray, me zayz. An im," Shawn was pointed to, "im ez uh gudden."

Shawn examined Jefferson's flawless, Greek-god profile for a translation.

"Our tech-writing department is still working on a Captain's English to American-English Dictionary," said Jefferson. His humor was wry, flat, unemotional—deadpan. Like his cousin's. "You'll get the hang of it after a while. He was agreeing with me about Scobie, but says that he thinks you'll be one that Scobie actually decides to hire. Don't get too excited, Shawn. He's hired three stable hands—and fired them all at the end of their first day."

Shawn actually gulped, cartoon-style. Mr. Scobie was going to be the worst test.

When the stables came into view, Shawn was immediately impressed. They were tidy, without a lick of a cobweb anywhere, and the only sign of ugliness were the flies. Shawn brushed one away from his brow, hoping that swiping at flies wasn't on the list of Hidden Tests. It didn't seem to be, since Roberts mirrored Shawn's gesture. The host asked the Captain to wait until they were sure Shawn wouldn't need a ride out to the parking lot. From what Shawn had heard of Mr. Scobie, he guessed Mr. Roberts' request was genuine.

Shawn continued his cursory inspection of the stables. Two barns with those things Shawn called "horse head windows," meaning dutch-doors. The ajar upper doors were used by the horses to shoot out their heads to watch all the passers-by, people, flies, bunny rabbits, birds. Inside the stables, Shawn would find full access doors to each stall, and cross-ties for keeping the horses anchored during grooming and stall cleaning, and all the amenities—and then some—that he was familiar with. He knew the center barn, between the two stables, was not a barn at all but an indoor riding arena.

Each barn had a nicely pitched roof covered in green tin plates, with boxy rectangular vents that carried their own little pitched roofs. They looked like churches with stumpy steeples or old-fashioned airplane hangars—which wouldn't be hard, because airplane hangars were once just barns anyway. The landscaping around Club Horse Terrain was kept to a minimum: sycamores, Pacific Willows, and one impressive California Live Oak standing like a sentry between the barns and in front of the arena.

Out of the arena popped Mr. Scobie. Through the nascence of Shawn's intuition about the Club employees, he knew it was Mr. Scobie. Long, powerful strides, hands utterly destroyed by arthritis knotted at his sides. He wore no cowboy hat, destroying Shawn's viewpoint of the cranky old equine caretaker. But he did have on a bushwhacker's hat that'd seen better days. His plaid shirt was short-sleeved, dark in hues to hide the dirt and horse snot, and his blue jeans were tough, in good shape—probably his newest pair—and bottomed off with cowboy boots that resembled Shawn's in color.

"Izumbees umtin!" murmured the Captain, scooching around in the cart's seat to watch the proceedings. He did enjoy the show Old Scobie made when he met with one of his potential usurpers.

A half-hearted search done by Shawn told him all he really needed to know about Mr. Scobie. The old stable manager was pissed that some dumb kid was going to come in and steal his job, maybe even force him into retirement. Men like the Captain and Mr. Scobie didn't retire. They were waiting to die while on the job. In that respect, Shawn surmised that Mr. Scobie wasn't all that different than Carlton. Shawn wasn't good at judging people—or at least he wasn't good at pigeon-hole judging people and keeping them there. He wanted to like Mr. Scobie, and Mr. Scobie didn't want anyone to like him.

"So you're the newest one they're flinging at me, are you?"

One thing Shawn hadn't been able to read in Mr. Scobie's expression: an Australian accent. Watered down through the years, as if someone had left an ice cube of American Western dialect in him to melt over the decades, but Australia was still in him.

"My name is Shawn Spencer, and I don't know anything about flinging me at you, but I am here for a job if that's what you mean." Shawn had no intention on kowtowing to the ancientness of the Mariner in front of him. He guessed that willpower and gumption—or a balance between temerity and timidity—had been missing from the countless others who'd stood before Mr. Scobie on their job interview day.

Scobie's wild gray-black-white eyebrows rose, sending lumps of wrinkles into the softening, thinning skin across his forehead. "You think so, do you? Well, get your step up, kid. You'd best come and see the horses. A horse is the best judge of people, I always say. And if they don't like you then I'm not going to work with you."

"Fair enough," Shawn replied, able to keep up with the ridiculous pace of a man whose every joint screamed with the heat and ache of arthritis.

He glanced behind to see Jefferson Roberts staying with the Captain's ship. Mr. Roberts lifted a hand, something very Lady Galadriel in the movement. It was a signal that he would wait until Mr. Scobie had made his decision, even if Mr. Scobie dragged Shawn across the Club's entire acreage.

A gate to the pasture, built of metal cylinders and wide enough for a decent-sized tractor to fit through. Through the gate stepped Mr. Scobie, Shawn still right behind him.

"Girl horses here," Mr. Scobie pointed to the ground, then to another pasture separated by pathway three feet wide and a fence five feet high, "and boy horses over there, including the geldings. Very important. Never mix the horses up."

Well, that went without saying. That was Remedial Biology. Shawn simply nodded. It was important for a man like Mr. Scobie to believe no thought had existed before it'd entered his brain. Shawn was reminded of his father.

"How's your lungs? You got good lungs, kid? No smoking? Keep up with aerobics?"

"Yeah, sure. I run—at least three times a week." He didn't say that he might run three days a week but sometimes only a mile. "Can't stand cigarettes, though I did take a pack of Winstons to James Dean's grave recently."

Scobie had no idea what to do with that, and left it alone. "All right, then. Call out for Holly."

Holly must be a horse. Shawn called. The timbre of his voice or the sweetness of his tone must've been just right, for immediately a dark red horse in the distance picked up her head from the importance of grazing and gave the gate area a suspicious leer. Again, Shawn called for Holly. Over she came. Not in a gallop, but with a traditional walk, her head bent so that her nostrils were right on the level with Shawn's chest. He touched her soft, brown-gray nose, getting ruffled lips in return. Mr. Scobie dug a peppermint out of his pocket and gave it to Shawn, who gave it to Holly. While crunching the candy, she kept trying to dig her nose into Shawn.

Mr. Scobie ticked off boxes on a mental checklist. Holly was a bitch of a horse. If she liked Shawn. . . So, one more test to go.

"All the boy horses are all right, even the stallions. Of course, they take getting used to." Mr. Scobie closed the gate to the Boy Pasture behind Shawn. The boys were grazing far off, near a clump of forced-grown Digger Pines, and minding their own business with a vengeance. Mr. Scobie nearly clapped his hands together with joy. _This_ was his favorite part of the test, the one that always humiliated the one taking it. "Call over Timber."

Shawn called, noting that a black horse—perhaps a literal black stallion—with a white blaze between his eyes, deigned to regard that he'd heard the call. Another horse nipped at Timber, and Timber nipped back, then sidled away from the herd but not noticeably. Timber was still curious about the stranger who'd called for him—and called for him again. Shawn was sure the horse was thinking, "What impudence! What fools!" Every male horse in his head sounded like Richard Burton, and every female horse carried the sarcastic tone of Laura Kightlinger.

Shawn wondered how long they were supposed to wait. Mr. Scobie gave no indication that the fight to get Timber over to the gate had been lost. It was an important part of the job. If the horses were out in the pasture and one of their owners wanted that horse for a ride, a ten-minute wait would seem arduous to clients used to getting their own way. Horses were living creatures, and didn't have the instantaneous obedience of a mobile text message.

"Should I go over and get him?" Shawn offered, wondering if the question was the kiss of death, if he'd just lost the job because he'd just failed the final Hidden Test. For all he knew, Mr. Scobie would answer yes, without warning that Timber liked to kick in the teeth of any who came near.

Mr. Scobie took a black braided leather leash off a fence rail, where the rest were clipped after leading the horses into the field in the morning. "I'll try and get him over here. Doesn't mean he'll be caught in his lead. Just means that I'll try and get him over here."

Shawn waited, poised, indifferent. He glanced again towards the lay of the barns, but the shrubbery near the paddock wrecked his chance of seeing Mr. Roberts and the Captain. He heard the clopping of hooves. Mr. Scobie was coming up with Timber on his lead. Timber was remarkable. It would take any idiot with half a brain, horse-related brain or not, to recognize it. His worth was multiple tens of thousands of dollars. His head was perfect, his legs were perfect, even the white blaze burst out with perfect star-shaped points. But there was a meanness in the horse's eyes, in the manner he looked at Shawn, that sent Shawn's hands swooping behind his back.

"This is Timber, the Club's pride and joy. Owned by the Hayworths. I'm sure you know them."

Other than the fact that they owned the majority of downtown buildings in Santa Barbara, and had had a lengthy street named after them—Shawn didn't know the Hayworths at all.

"He's not the friendliest of horses. I'd keep my hands to myself for a while, if I were you, till he gets used to you. If he ever has the chance to get used to you."

"I'll take your word for it," Shawn said. Though Timber's strong, muscled neck was a black like shellacked onyx, probably sun-warmed and freshly brushed, Shawn kept his hands behind his back. He simply did not like the way that Timber looked at him. Horses have personalities, like people. Some clashed. Some got along marvelously. Shawn was relieved to see Mr. Scobie snap off the clip from Timber's monogrammed halter.

Timber took off, back to his pack. Shawn enjoyed the way the horse ran. "He's a lot handsomer than the two horses I worked with back at my uncle's. There was nothing glamorous about them. Just saddle horses: nice and reliable. I have a feeling that Timber knows he's pretty. I like my horses to keep guessing about their looks."

"Never knew a horse that wasn't at least a little vain." He looked at Shawn, his eyes wincing. "Never knew many humans that weren't a little vain, either."

Back at the stables, Shawn was invited to browse by himself, if he wanted. The offer was made by Mr. Scobie. Shawn wasted no chance accepting, no longer caring if saying yea or nay was part of a test.

Jefferson waited until Shawn's silhouette had been sucked inside the interminable darkness of the first stable doorway. "Well?"

Mr. Scobie looked into the blankness of the barn, where Mr. Spencer had last stood, then leaned against the paddock fence.

"Guess you'd better give him the chance, Jeff. He didn't try and be a showy galah and touch Timber. You know them galahs you've been sending me, soon as they hear that Timber is a biter, well, the first thing they want to do is show that they're not afraid of being bit. Ha! Lot of good it does them! Mr. Spencer trusted his instincts about the horse, and, most importantly, he trusted mine. I don't want anyone who can't trust himself to do what's right when he knows it's right."

Jefferson looked at the Captain, who shrugged, laughed, and spoke a cheery but unintelligible phrase.

"You know, Waylon," Jefferson started, "Mr. Spencer has his own side-business, a detec—"

Waylon pushed off from the fence. "Yeah, I know who he is. There's Mrs. Jennings," he said of the woman appearing over the little knoll, dressed in her riding habit. "Better go 'n help her." He stormed off, the aura of his wake downright chilly.

The Captain ceased to smile, and, puzzled, itched the top of his head. "Wuh! Ezz entruzzin!"

Jefferson agreed. It was very interesting. He watched Waylon Scobie greet Mrs. Jennings, then he swept into the golf cart. "Back to the clubhouse, please, Captain."

Inside the first of the two stables, Shawn weaved down the wide corridors, examining the stalls, examining the storage rooms, reading brass name plates and sheets of horse identification information. Of all the names he browsed, none struck Shawn as familiar. He didn't know what he'd been expecting. One horse owned by a Waterstone, he guessed. It'd been foolish to think it'd be that simple. But he remained positive that Lady Olga, and Olga's cousin, had led Shawn Spencer to that barn for a reason.

He made his way into the bright sunshine, momentarily dazzled until his eyes re-adjusted. Only Mr. Scobie waited, joined in his lone company by a fat, barrel-shaped Welsh Corgi.

"This is Mickey," Mr. Scobie said. "She's no bother. Just hangs about a bit and cadges the clients for treats. You know how dogs are."

Shawn loved Corgis. Ten seconds in, Shawn and Mickey were best friends forever and ever.

"Now," the Australian accent sharpened on the word, with a strong, nasal "OA" mutant vowel, "you're probably wondering what became of Mr. Jefferson and the Captain. Well, Jeff went off back to HQ to get you some papers you'll need to sign if you're wanting the job."

Shawn nearly tripped over Mickey. "Wanting the job?" he repeated dumbly.

"Don't get excited. I'll bet that Jeff told you no newbie down here has lasted more than a week. And that's the truth. None has of yet. Let's get you inside and get you some tea. Iced or fresh brewed?"

"Either is fine," Shawn said, still feeling lost in a wonderland of possibility.

"Another thing you ought to know is that I live here. This isn't just my work. It's my life. There's the door to my living quarters."

Shawn spotted the door—it was hard to miss. In the beige walls of the second stable, the bright red contraption stood out fifty yards away. It was the only part of the stable that had shrubs, a little flower garden, and annuals of birds of paradise and cannas, no longer in bloom. Mickey led the way on stocky white-and-tan legs. The door handle was new, the brass shiny. It had been a traditional round type of door handle, replaced with a long, horn-style to accommodate Mr. Scobie's crimped hands.

The inside smelled sharply of wood wax and eucalyptus. It was a loft apartment, with an upstairs holding the bedroom and bathroom, railed off and accessible only by a flight of open stairs. All the woodwork was light, from the natural wood wall paneling to the floor. Shawn felt like he'd stepped inside a tree house without actually needing to climb into one or putting up with bugs. There was a tiny wood burning stove, good for those cool and foggy Santa Barbara nights.

"This here's the lounge," Mr. Scobie said, passing through the worn couches, chairs and end tables covered in periodicals with horse or outdoor themes.

In the back of the small place was a tiny, functional kitchen. Tiny, though. Damn tiny. Shawn felt like a giant among the miniature appliances and low, dated countertops and worn cabinets. Mr. Scobie had an electric teakettle, and in a moment he was pouring the hot water into two mugs he'd set out, each fitted with a tea ball.

Shawn was busy puzzling over the wall underneath the staircase, of the two maps—one of Santa Barbara and the other of Australia's Cape York Peninsula—and of a cubed bookcase full of interesting Australian artifacts and countless books of fiction and nonfiction. Unfortunately, he saw no sign of a toilet, and after the nerve-wrecking car ride to the interview, and the interview itself, Shawn really had to pee.

"Upstairs. First door on the left."

Shawn followed Mr. Scobie's directions. Only after he'd concluded business within the bathroom, and marveling that it still had olive-green one-inch tiles, _very _1970s, he maneuvered into the wide, stylish bedroom. The same maple-colored wood was everywhere, but the bedspread was palm leaves with blue and red macaws. Tropical, with influences of 1988, too. Shawn went to the top of the staircase, then, whipping around so fast he almost fell backward—he gripped the handrail with an unnatural intensity.

In a man's bedroom was always one object that did not belong. In the case of Shawn's "bedroom" at Mee Mee's Fluff *n Fold, it was the bookcase devoted to gilt-spine copies of Dickens, Nietzsche and the world's best poetry anthologies. At Carlton's, prior to Shawn moving in, it was an Oriental vase that held matchbooks Carlton had picked up on his travels and investigations. In the Nautical bedroom, also at Carlton's, that Shawn had slept in before pairing up with Lassie on a queen-sized mattress, it was the row of Shakespeare and other books from Carlton's college days.

In Mr. Scobie's bedroom, it was a sitting chair in the upper corner of the room, so new that it looked like it hadn't been sat in.

A blue damask chair.

A fat book was on its seat, with dimensions almost recognizable to Shawn. He neared it surreptitiously, acting like it was a living thing that would scurry off if frightened. He got within ten feet—then the front door opened. Shawn skedaddled down the staircase, his mind active, his heart thumping, and his throat suddenly dry.

"Shawn," Mr. Roberts said, noticing nothing out of the ordinary in the face of someone who'd just learned that he'd been hired, "I have some papers for you to sign. And while we're sipping some of Mr. Scobie's excellent imported tea, the three of us can talk about what kind of hours you want to work."

Shawn absorbed the information, but all he really wanted to do was tell Carlton about the chair—and buy Lady Olga a thank-you gift.

-x-

Elated as he was to have a job taking care of horses, and holding a probable lead into Waterstone (maybe not his death exactly, but Waterstone was an enigma that needed to be unfolded), Shawn's premiere move was not to execute a happy call to Carlton. It was to return a call from Mike C, one of the Tanglevine Club owners.

"Hello, this is Mike."

"Mike, this is Shawn."

They didn't need to use surnames to identify one another anymore. Formality, what had been left of it between them, was blown to smithereens the night of the bar fight. Shawn bet the call had something to do with said fight.

"Oh, good, you're swift at getting back to me. I know you're probably one of Santa B's busiest men, but I wanted to see if you could help me and Mike out with something."

"I have some free time tonight." Assuming that he could force Lassie to eat yet _another_ dinner at the Tanglevine. "Is tonight all right?"

"Tonight is fantastic. Say around seven?"

"Yeah, I'll be there."

"Great."

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"What will I be doing?"

"Oh, right," Mike had forgotten to mention it after a long afternoon's labor. "Our insurance company is picking on us after our brawl. So they're coming through again to look at the place, check for fire hazards and otherwise make sure we have all our ducks in a row. We're trying to clean up before they get here the day after tomorrow."

"Makes sense."

"Mike and I wondered if you'd go through some of the old papers we have here. Most of them predate the fire of 1962. Ledgers, books, even some photographs. We need to clear out the junk from the culturally important."

"I can do that. I think I know most of the history of that place by now."

"And now you've been _part _of our history, too. I need the stuff you keep to stay organized. Jane Peters-August was in here again, bugging me about giving her and the damn Historical Society pictures of this place when it was loaded with silver screen celebrities. Hell, I wouldn't know Ava Gardner from Megan Fox, so what's the use of me going through papers and ledgers and Mr. Grissom's famous correspondence? Would you do it for me? You're a movie buff. You'd know the names you'd need to know. Right?"

For an awful morning, the day had turned out to be rather golden. "Yeah," Shawn replied, shaken into numbness. Imagine the things he could find in the archives of the Tanglevine Club! "Yeah, I think I'd know the right kind of names. I'll be there around seven."

"Mike will have chili cheese fries ready for you."

With thanks spouted on both ends of the line, Shawn hung up. It was after four-thirty. He'd spent more than two hours at the Club, getting acquainted with the stables, the grounds, and filling out paperwork for his new position. Carlton would no longer be at Waterstone's house, Shawn was sure of that. Instead of making one more phone call, he opted to head straight for the station. He wanted to tell _someone _about the blue chair, even if it was just his dad.


	10. Chapter of Light

10.

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;  
>So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,<br>Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.

(_LLL_, I.1.14)

**Fredag, november 4:e, klockan sex på kvällen**

Dear Cole,

Today your name is Cole. And, no, Cole, if I've told you once then I've told you a thousand times, the word 'sex' in the date has nothing to do with sex! It the Swedish Fish's way of saying "six." Sex is actually kön, except you don't pronounce it like "KAAAAAAAHHHHNNNN!" Like you're yelling at Ricardo Montalban, but kind of like, well, there's this silent T and Y sort of sound, and … yeah. We'll leave it at that. Leave it to people who eat dried up fish to make a TY sound from a K.

Here I am! Back at the Precinct. I was hoping that Gus or the Chief or Juliet or SOMEONE would be here to listen to my excited puppy-dog yapping. You know who IS here? NOBODY. The most notable absence is that of my poor, harried and blighted boyfriend. He left a pile a cold cases on his desk. Tyas, who is also here but is still scared of me—even though I promised to never dress like Hans Trapper again for Christmas and throw a bag over his head like I was going to carry him off—but Tyas said that Lassie (Tyas called him "Detective Lassiter" because Tyas gets very AR TIC YOO LIT whenever he talks to me—do I slur?) that Lassie dashed out of the building about twenty minutes before I dashed into it.

I'm very proud of myself: I didn't touch the cold cases. Didn't even lay a hand on them. All I went to the desk for was to snoop through his pile of missed calls (three, and we must remember to pick up his dry-cleaning on the way home) and I found that Mounds bar that I shoved far, far back in the middle drawer. There's an Almond Joy in there, but I don't feel like a nut today. (Bada-bump-ching! Thank you. Lamest joke ever.)

Now I'm ensconced in the older, less used video room, where I tend to hide away and nap. Someone's getting a psych-eval in the next room, and sometimes snippets of conversation drift through the ventilation and down into the wells of my comely ears. I can't say it's very interesting, although I have heard the words "in bed together" often. Long money's on it being someone with a healthy sex life. In this precinct, uh, that leaves three people out of, like, eighty-five: Lassie, Dobson and Sergeant Knack. I only know that about Sergeant Knack because I've already overheard one of her psych-evals, and, wow, it was very—eesh. I think she's in the wrong business. She should be writing erotica or at least some very good Vampire Diaries fanfic.

Oh, wait, there's that phrase again. "He acts like an ass whenever we're IN BED TOGETHER."

Okay, much more definition that time, and it's definitely a woman, and it's definitely Knack. There are so many puns that I could make with her last name and her favorite private past time, but I think I'd better leave it be.

At least I know the person in the next room isn't my father. Thank the gods for small favors.

Anyway, I am now sitting here all by myself waiting for Lassie to come back. It occurred to me that I could call him, or call Gus, but I don't have much more to say than "ZOMG there's a blue chair in Mr. Scobie's room!" Even saying it nice and loud, with decent projection, will not make it sound more impressive. It's a chair. In a man's bedroom.

The book of Shakespeare takes an explanation that I haven't got. It must be Waterstone's. It matches the set I saw in Waterstone's house. Why does Mr. Scobie have it? Did Waterstone give it to him, or did Scobie take it? Even a dull man who's spent his life around horses knows it would be dumb to take a book from the house of a man you've just helped die. Ergo, Waterstone must've given it to Scobie. The two know each other. That also explains the chair. What's the Connect Four between them?

It's certainly not enough to bring the man in for questioning. The Chief is right: Waterstone killed himself. My job is to figure out why. And who is Christopher Sly?

Gus is probably at home, still doing laundry. I'll call him when I'm done at Tanglevine. He won't be as excited or entranced about the chair as I was. It's usually his reprimanding voice I hear in my head. "You found a chair, Shawn? Congratulations, you've bothered me again for no reason!" But I know that he's intrigued about the whole thing—chair notwithstanding—and he can say all he wants to about my method of stringing together improbable likenesses. That's why they pay us the big bucks.

-x-

Shawn had to stop his therapeutic nonsense to answer his phone. He expected a call from Lassie or Gus—but not his father. When the caller I.D. displayed "Balding Cranky Old Man," Shawn groaned. If he sent it to voicemail, Dad would just call again, and again, until—

"I'm answering now just to get this out of the way," Shawn said instead of a hello.

"Nice to hear your voice, too." Henry lapsed into a second's worth of silence. All right. So Shawn wasn't eager to talk about his first day of work. Henry let them travel another path. "Are you done with my paint chips yet?"

"No, I'm not. And, really? Really? That's the reason you're calling me?"

"One of far too many to name. How are you not done with them yet? I don't understand. Does it take two guys that long to pick out paint for the living room?"

"Exactly how attached to these paint chips are you? They've been out of your sight forty-eight hours, and you're already more worried about them than you were about me the last time I was out of your sight for forty-eight hours."

Now was the time for a diversion. Henry would've called it a segue if he'd had a neat way of flowing from one topic to another. He didn't. Diversion was more appropriate. Shawn continued to beat the paint chip drum.

"You know, Dad, it'll take us more than a couple of days to decide on a color. I know you probably think that all gay people have built-in color-enhancing and superhero decorating skills, but we don't. You might as well strike that off the list. This is Carlton Lassiter we're talking about. The same Carlton whose idea of 'a splash of color' is a wooden picture frame."

"He wears lots of colored ties," Henry threw in, feeling suddenly defensive and not sure why.

"Ties, yes. But he's not like that when it comes to walls. Well, you know—you've seen them. It's so gray and gloomy in there, Richard Simmons would sob, and he is the happiest person in the world. What's another reason you called me?"

Diversion. Right. A little less significant now than it would've been a harangue before. "Did you get yourself fired on your first day?"

So that's why Henry was calling, to see how the job had gone? Shawn had a hollow pang in his chest, a slight touch of guilt. It was nice of Daddy to check on him. "No, I didn't. Did you expect me to?"

"My expectations of you are naturally low."

"That's a mutual thing between us."

"But I've also heard that Scobie out there at the stables doesn't like anyone. He's fired everyone he's hired. And apparently he has some kind of test to see if you're an idiot or not."

"What's the test?" Shawn zipped through each "test" that he'd _known _to be a test.

"I-I don't remember exactly. Kendra, she does my mani-pedi—"

"Dad, that is disgusting," Shawn grumbled, massaging the bridge of his nose. "Go on, quickly, while I'm still breathing."

"Her sister works at the Country Club, and I was asking her—Kendra, not her sister—about the stables. She said something about a certain horse out there that Mr. Scobie uses to see if his potential underling—"

"Appropriate word."

"Kendra's word, not mine. To see if his potential underling has instincts with horses and also the ability to take his—Scobie's—word for it."

Shawn hummed and nodded, as if his dad were watching. "Yeah, I know what you're talking about. A horse named Timber."

"That was it. Timber."

"The Hayworths own him. Do you know the Hayworths?"

Now Shawn was dangling his father along, not answering the first question but instead moving them along. Henry still didn't know if Shawn had passed the test, if he was still employed, or if he'd failed the test and not been hired at all.

"They own half of Santa Barbara."

"Besides that. I know they own half of Santa Barbara."

"They used to own more than half. I think they used to own the Tanglevine Club back in the day. Before it was the Tanglevine Club. They weren't just into real estate, but I can't remember what else they did. They had their stronghold on the city back before my time."

"If I run into Neanderthal Bob, I'll ask."

"Ha, ha."

"Seriously, though, I'm going over there later to help out the Mikes. I'll ask them."

"So."

"So?"

"Dammit, Shawn, did you get fired or not?"

"Oh." Shawn ceased drawing a little sketch of a horse in the journal margin. "No, I didn't. I didn't touch Timber, chiefly because Scobie told me not to. And the horse just had an attitude. 'I'm the best horse ever! Look at me, look at me!'"

"The two of you should get along really well."

"Bah. I'm going back to work tomorrow morning. Late morning. Scobie does the morning feeding, then I go in, and I'm guessing that I'll be cleaning out the stalls once the horses that go out in the field get to the field. And should I get to spend some time with Carlton later tonight, I'll ask him about the paint colors. Again. He's still slightly resistant to the idea."

"If you two are going to paint, you'd better do it this upcoming week. The weather's going to get bad soon."

"I'm hanging up now, because I don't want to talk about this with you. It's weird for me. I can't take it."

Shawn was saved by the opening of the door, a flash of light into a room whose overhead fluorescents Shawn rarely turned on—and the long, thin shadow attached to Lassie.

"Really gotta go, Dad. Hugs and kisses."

"Shawn—!" Henry stared into the receiver that'd gone dead. Discouraged, he put it back on the cradle. "Figures. Just when I was going to offer to help."

Far before Lassiter decided he'd miss Shawn's flip-flops under the table, his motorcycle jacket thrown carelessly over the beige chair—in other words, long before they were an item—Carlton's stoic expressions were no match for Shawn's cutting intuition. It took neither of them more than a scant look at one another to spot excitement. Each had a piece of news. Rarely had Shawn seen Lassiter so animated. That one time that he and Jules were selected to speak at 21 LES in front of all twenty people that'd attended. And when Mr. Brandt's pig escaped in Barrel Creek, and the whole town—about twenty people—got together to hunt for it, with torches, horses and tranquilizer guns. And once, of course, in bed. Shawn felt the pooling of sexy Carlton stood plenty erect against Weapon-Demonstrating Carlton and Pig-Chasing Carlton.

Shawn tipped into him for a squeeze. He petted his fingers lightly down Carlton's lapel. "Hello, lover. You go first. I'll wait." Shawn found himself pushed away, gazed at, not exactly lovingly but—but there was something _odd _about Carlton. "Wait, wait, wait, is this a bad surprise? I don't like bad surprises, they make me—"

Carlton smashed his palm against Shawn's mouth. His excitement mingled with alarm. "I'll take my hand off in a second. Just don't want you to fly off the handle when I say this. Not that you exactly _fly _off handles. More like—glide gently into a firestorm."

Shawn's head tipped. Again, proof that Lassie had actually read all those literature books in college, still sitting in the Nautical Room at home. He lifted his shoulders, gesturing, trying to hurry this along.

"The Chief had me going through some cold cases."

Yeah—and? Shawn seemed to ask.

"There was one in that there caught my interest. It was like Waterstone's case. A suicide. But nearby was a note that saying that the woman had killed someone else and that's why she couldn't live anymore. I didn't say that very well, but you get what I mean. No, it wasn't Christopher Sly she'd killed. It was Adriano de Armado. Do you know who that is?"

One of the more unpopular of Shakespeare's works, no doubt, since Shawn was drawing a blank.

Lassiter let his hand down. Shawn exhaled dramatically, but he did not glide into any firestorm. He dangled beneath a droopy little cloud, really.

"He's from _Love's Labour's Lost_," continued Carlton. "A Spaniard who was kind of an ass."

Shawn's gesture swooped as he spoke. "I didn't read that one in school."

"Can't say I can blame your educational system there. It's hard to read, it's style is a little—odd. It's like one giant tongue twister. I went to the library to look up some Shakespeare stuff, to be sure I was right—about de Armado."

Shawn had two words to say. "The internet!" He almost smacked Lassiter's forehead for him.

"It's out," Carlton stated. "They've been putting in new routers. Why do you think there's nobody here? They all went home to play with their computers or tablets or whatever the hell they're using these days. And you know I'm not smart when it comes to smart phones." Carlton decided to halt there, at least for the time being. It was Shawn's turn to explain how his day had gone, though they were more used to doing this as they prepared dinner in the lushness of home, but he supposed the video room would suffice. "What happened at work?"

"Nothing too serious. I signed all the papers, so I am legitimately employed as a stable boy. Feel free to live out your Medieval and-or Victorian fantasies now. Well, not _now _now. But maybe when we get home." Shawn paused, ruminative. It wasn't a good time to mention the chair. Lassie's news had weighed down any importance the chair might've had. "Which probably won't be until after nine. I promised the Mikes that I'd go over and help them out. Looking through the archives. You want to come along? You might like it. You'll get to see parts of Tanglevine you've never seen before." His eyebrows waggled. "The Secret Dungeon!"

Carlton's frown tightened, and his eyebrows wrinkled together. "I'd rather spend my time seeing things of you I've never seen before. There are still bits of you I don't understand."

"Only bits?"

"Great big galaxies."

"That's better. Why would you want to?" Shawn said, deflecting. "Then you'd know and I'd be boring. Will you go or not? The sooner we go the sooner we'll be done. And I can't expect that the Mikes think I'll be there until I've gone through all the papers and photographs."

Yet unconvinced, Carlton wondered what he'd get out of the bargain. Shawn understood what he was thinking.

"They're going to feed us."

That was all Carlton needed to hear. "Let's go! Don't forget your—" the journal was handed to its owner, "your little friend."

-x-

Tanglevine had gathered a good crowd for a weeknight. Shawn zipped through the round tables, able to name the menu items by sight, by smell, and impressing himself with the feat if no one else. The new chef was talented, but Shawn hadn't exactly warmed up to him yet. It wasn't to the kitchen Shawn led Carlton, but into the deep well of the proscenium, then into the wilderness of the backstage, the metal spiral staircase, one of the oldest architectural pieces left from the original 1880's saloon, and up to the office of the Mikes. It was two doors ahead of the object Shawn called now The Terrible Door. He didn't think of it except in passing, to let his eyes catch on it, black and rectangular and serviceable, like other doors. In its present life, it was a storage room: filing cabinets, kitchen goods, napkins and packets of ketchup, that had been over-ordered to explosive surplus. Shawn never went in there, had no reason to go in there. He'd rather be shunned to the pits of Tanglevine than step a foot beyond The Terrible Door.

He rapped knuckles on the Mikes' door, wasn't bade entrance but was surprised at Mike C. suddenly standing there. His long finely-boned cheeks were flushed pink, the underside of his eyes in myriad shades of gray and lavender and green. Mike was prone to headaches.

"You're here." The lameness of his voice definitely indicated headache. A green pill bottle was spotted on his desk. "I'll show you to the doldrums. You sure you don't mind doing this?"

"I've got Lassie to keep me company," Shawn explained, now following Mike, and Lassiter following him. "It's okay that he's here, isn't it?"

"The more the merrier," Mike responded absently. It occurred to him that he didn't know a whole lot about Carlton. "Did you grow up in Santa Barbara?"

The innocent question stunned Carlton. "Not exactly."

"Lassiter associates himself with no particular location. He's my nomad. Think General Custer, but without the useless man slaughtering and the possible gonorrhea."

Mike had grown used to Shawn's jokes, quips and jests. The unpredictability was part of Shawn's persona. He'd never known anyone to walk around carting a spotlight at all times, the way Shawn did. The traditional blare of Shawn's brilliance had begun to wane, not all at once, the way a light bulb burns out, but slowly, the way the sun goes down. He didn't know what good Carlton would bring to the mess of disorganized archives in the lower level of Tanglevine, yet Carlton's mind, completely opposite Shawn's, nevertheless worked furiously, tirelessly, and melded well with his partner's.

Mike guided them into the dark, spooky realm of Hank's Corner. He laid his elbow into the secret latch of a masking panel. The panel hung loose on lintel latches. Mike's fingers guided into the wall. Carlton was amazed. He'd never known that was there, and mumbled words to that effect, while Shawn stood aloof, the casual observer, haughty because he'd known the whole time, and because being let into the cave escalated him into the status of the Tanglevine elite. Mike expounded.

"This used to be the Gambling Hall, back when the Vine was a speakeasy during Prohibition. Only Santa Barbara's richest and LA's worthiest were allowed down here. A big man named Henry Acer used to be the door's bodyguard. We think that's how this got to be called Hank's Corner. Other than the plant. Nobody knows how old Hank the Plant is. Could've been here since the place was built."

They descended a set of limestone steps, narrow, worn, with an ironwork handrail hewn into the wall to keep the steepness from being dangerous. Carlton could imagine that a few people might have fallen to their depths on that staircase, drunk or pushed or careless. Shawn took the steps with ease, but, of course, Shawn had grand foot dexterity. Carlton had witnessed it as they romped through the woods of Uncle Fenz's land (and probably some of the neighboring acreage, too—oops).

"How long did that go on? The speakeasy, the gambling." Carlton made it to the bottom of the stairwell alive. He didn't know that he breathed a heavy sigh of relief, noticeable to Shawn. "I mean, was this a private visiting quarters for celebrities even after Prohibition ended in 1933?"

"Most definitely." Mike grabbed a box of black and white photographs off the Old Patriarch's desk. He shoved it to the detective. "And I have the proof."

Carlton picked up the first photo his fingers came to. He gaped. "Is that who I think it is?"

Shawn, excited, peered over Lassie's arm to acquaint himself with the photo. Early 40's, as told by the woman's hair, the man's short tie, the homburg set back off his forehead. He frowned loosely. "I don't have a clue who that is."

"I don't know who the woman is," said Carlton, "but the man is Milton Hackett. He used to write crime novels. Real pulp fiction kind of stuff. Like Mickey Spillane and Raymond Chandler. Only whereas Chandler died alone and sad, Hackett died rich, fat and happy. He based a lot of his stories in Santa Barbara, even invented this whole seedy underground to it, and a mob family that ran it—and had one of the few women private investigators ever written—back before it was considered cool. His last novel was unfinished, and the fragment was supposed to be released posthumously, but it disappeared."

Mike clapped his hands together, rubbed them. "I need to get home before I get any sicker."

"Yeah, I noticed," Shawn said, clapping Mike on the shoulder. "Take it easy, man. Carlton and I will work for a little while, then head home around nine. You didn't want us to do all of this tonight, did you?"

Shawn scanned the cavern. It was enormous. File boxes, varying in ages from ancient and moldering to new and bright, were scattered around the grotto, and boxes of smaller size, filled with papers, some folded and some curled, and filled with photographs, dotted every standing piece of furniture, from dusty ladder-backed chairs to the bar on the far wall. The place wasn't as creepy as Shawn remembered from his first and only other visit, but it had something to it, a faint melancholy, or an impenetrable mystery.

"Don't even try it," Mike advised. "Mike is still here. He's in the kitchen. I'll tell him to send down your chili cheese fries and beverages. Thanks for the help."

"Oh, thank you," Carlton replied, grinning, shaking sickly Mike's hand. He looked again into the box of photographs. "This will be a real pleasure, believe me."

"And the scary thing is, he's not just saying that to be polite. Go on," Shawn told Mike, nodding toward the staircase, "get out of here. We know what to do."

Mike left speedily, and Shawn waited to hear if the panel door shut—but a peek around the corner confirmed his suspicion: the hidden door was to be left open, though there was a chair in front of it. On the chair, Shawn could barely make out a piece of printer paper, no doubt its message was "Employees Only Do Not Enter." Just for the sake of consoling his screaming instincts, Shawn checked for cell phone reception. He shifted around a little, trying to get a bar to appear.

"Shawn."

"Yeah?"

"Look at this."

The photo Shawn was given contained a beautiful woman—the 50's, no—early 60's—judging by the handkerchief pulling back her hair, the clamdiggers and blouse she wore on an obviously warm Santa Barbara summer's day. He had no idea who she was. Carlton saw Shawn's mind try to identify the woman, but even Shawn couldn't do that.

"You were talking about the Hayworths, weren't you?"

Shawn gaped at Carlton. "Yeah—to my _dad_. Are you talking to my dad now?"

"He might've called—but that's not the point."

"So it's one of the Hayworth girls?"

"More like _the _Hayworth girl."

"Rita?"

"No," but Carlton slipped in an appreciative smirk. "Olivia Hayworth. She was a big patron of your new place of employment. That picture might've been taken there."

"Big into horses, were they?"

"Big into everything. They did everything big."

"How very J.R. Ewing of them."

Carlton fanned the picture. Shawn noted the tells: Carlton was hesitant to say a particularly intrusive line, something that both thrilled and frightened. "You know that woman I told you about, the suicide with the note about killing de Armado?"

Shawn's palms began to tingle, then sprouted a thin coat of cold sweat. He stuck them in jeans pockets. "What about it?"

"Her name was Maria Monroe. She was Olivia Hayworth's best friend."

"Oh, that's not so shocking. Except that I keep running into the Hayworths. And the chair at Scobie's house doesn't tie into the Hayworths."

"Chair? What chair?"

Shawn deflected. Now was not the time to talk about the chair. It seemed like such an unimportant clue. It was aggravating to have Carlton stumble upon clues, when Shawn felt like he was digging—literally—through horse crap just to find one. "I'll explain later. What else can you tell me about Maria and Olivia? Were they illicit lovers? Did her father disapprove? Was she lost after Maria's death?"

Carlton was only able to answer the last question. "She was already dead when Maria died."

Shawn's throat tightened. It did that sometimes when he sensed the joining of strange things. "All right, well, you know the next question I'm going to ask."

"How did Olivia die?"

"I don't suppose she was stabbed by de Armado, so how did she die?"

Carlton zipped through photographs with nimble, loose fingers, sorting them into piles by decade, and unable to look at Shawn. "Nobody knows."

"What do you mean, nobody knows?"

"She was presumed dead. Nobody ever found her body. Or her horse. She'd gone riding at the country club and just—vanished. The Virginia Dare of the SBCC."

The nearest space for Shawn to rest his rump was covered in papers, but he sat anyway. The crinkling under his butt inspired him to pull free the bundle of papers. Deeds, copies of deeds, employment records from the 1950's. Why the hell didn't this junk get thrown away years ago? Shawn set it aside.

"What about the rest? Olivia and Maria's friendship."

"I don't know much about it. It's all lore. I only remembered the bit about Olivia Hayworth disappearing because it was mentioned in Maria Monroe's case file. It was suggested by the detective at the time that Maria probably killed herself from grief."

Shawn did not think of himself, or what his life would be like if any of his friends, or Carlton, were suddenly gone. But he thought of Summer Preacher, the guilt and shame she had gone through. "People do die of broken hearts. Two years ago, I would never have said that was possible. Or it's possible the two of them had a quarrel—there are some pretty secluded spots at the country club—and Maria killed her. Although that doesn't explain the lack of evidence—and no body. No body," he shrugged, "no crime."

Away from the rummaging, Carlton faintly fingered the front of Shawn's shirt. A playful light gave a misty, playful dance in his eyes. "Can I ask you something?"

"It's the light bouncing off the limestone that makes me look even more irresistibly handsome." The joke was well received, but Shawn let Carlton ask what he wanted.

"Why are you so obsessed with figuring out the Waterstone case? I know why I am. But why are you?"

Part of it was a reflex, a sensation that he had somehow let down Summer, though he hadn't known her at all, and she had been troubled beyond repair. Part of it was the belief that bad things could not happen to good people, not all the time, and if it seemed that that evil plagued the non-deserving, he simply wanted to find the spark that had started it. "Because it was a terrible way to die. If I'd been the one hanging from that tree, and all I could leave behind was a cryptic message, I'd want some handsome psychic detective and his trusty set of pals to come along and inculpate or exculpate me, whichever was possible."

Carlton pinched Shawn's jaw and pecked his cheek. "You're a good man."

"Not really. I smell nice, though. It has you in my thrall."

The two of them looked to the staircase when a series of thumps echoed. "Might be Mike with our chili cheese fries. About freaking time, too. I'm starving," Shawn said, edging to the stairs, and tilting into the stairwell—just in time to see the secret door close tight against the wall.

"H'mm. Odd. The door just shut." Shawn was far from panicked.

Carlton pushed him out of the way and, all the way up the fourteen narrow steps, he rammed his elbow into the door. It didn't budge. He slammed his palm on it.

"Hey! Open this door! Now! I am a detective with the Santa Barbara Police Department, and if you don't let me out right now you're going to be in serious trouble!"

The incident might've frightened Shawn more if he'd let it. He claimed his usual air of insouciance. He wasn't destined to die in the basement of the Tanglevine Club. "Way to tell them off, Lassie. Keep pounding. Someone will hear you eventually. I'll wander around and see if I can get a signal with the phone and give Mike a call."

Lassiter pounded, but nobody came in the next two minutes. Shawn wandered, trying to find a reception bar. He found one, once, but as soon as he had Mike's number sent, the connection dropped. Fuming, frustrated, Shawn continued to wander, staring at his phone, not watching where he was going. His shoes tangled with a short pile of shoeboxes, full of papers, photographs, small ledgers. They spilled six feet in front of him, clogging up the biggest bare space in the grotto. Disgruntled, Shawn started tidying the mess. He reached down to pick up the next set of photos, and stopped.

"Hey, Lassie, come here."

"But—"

"Will you just come here?"

Lassiter obeyed, but reluctantly. He grabbed the photograph Shawn handed to him. Two men, outdoors, late 1950's. There was no name on the back. Carlton didn't recognize either face. "Who are they?"

Shawn had no trouble explaining. Perhaps it was the reason he'd been summoned to basement work, and the reason the door had shut. "The man in the hat is my new boss when he was probably twenty. The man on the right, in the suit and tie, is Mr. Waterstone. I _knew _that they had to know each other! That explains the chairs! And the book! And—what? What is this? What? Why? Why now?"

The lights had gone out. The underground room was now the deepest, most impenetrable black. Shawn's outstretched hands reached Carlton's.

"Shawn."

"What?"

"You know I love you, but I'm so pissed at you right now for making me come down here."

Shawn huffed. "Yeah, that's fair. We didn't even get our fries! Dammit." His phone showed no signal. "Any luck with yours?" He saw a flash of blue from the screen of Carlton's phone, then blackness as the screen and keypad went dark.

"No. Use your phone to guide us up the stairs. We'll pound until someone lets us out. The restaurant was crowded. Someone's going to have to use the toilet sooner or later."

A tiny possibility rose a lump of fear into the back of Shawn's throat. He wasn't going to say it. He wasn't even going to _think _it. But there were easy ways to clear out a restaurant in a hurry. Shawn's nose betrayed his vow of silence.

"Lassie."

"What?"

"Do you smell smoke?"

"Just don't even start, Spencer."

"Still love me?"

"Ask me again in ten minutes."


	11. Chapter of Secrets

11.

Gus couldn't believe he and Juliet were even having this conversation. Already.

It seemed drastically premature to talk about Christmas arrangements in early November. Gus had tried and tried, through his thirty-something years ("nearly forty-something years," his conscience kept whispering) to never speak of the holidays until, at the very least, _after _Election Day. He'd learned long ago to throw out his internal book of _Everything You Think You Know About Everything_ the moment he realized, conclusively, that Juliet O'Hara was an overachiever. Like him, but not as competitive and a whole lot cuter when she bragged about those overachievements.

She was going to out-perform herself this Christmas. She was. There'd be no stopping her.

He feared for his Christmas. He really did.

"See, the thing is, is that I always feel like I scare new people away," Juliet said. "Remember when I told you about Penny Pasquinelli?"

"But I think you said her name was Pascaretti."

"Quinelli, -caretti—I've heard it both ways."

"You and Shawn. What about her?"

"Well, I was just trying to be nice—and I scared her into filing a complaint against me. And you and I never talked much the first few years you and Shawn worked with the SBPD."

"In my defense, I was more afraid of Lassiter than you. And I don't think you scare people away. Lassiter scares people. You can be a harsh breeze at times, but you're not the hurricane gale that Carlton is."

She enjoyed his weird analogies, not quite positive he was a master of poetry, metaphors and similes, and not quite sure he knew what he was saying. "Yeah, you're right. Carlton's good at coming off like a harsh wind—a harsh wind poisoned with siran gas."

"Yup, there you go."

Her spot on the living room floor contained a circle of flimsy paper pattern pieces, and swaths of novelty flannel. It was likely the rise of this topic had stemmed from her work on Christmas presents for her friends and family. She was making matching pajamas for Shawn and Carlton. It would be _their _first Christmas together, and they needed a gift that sweetened the niceness of Coupledom. Silly matching pajamas, with frolicking Rudolphs and oversized snowflakes upon a red background—well, that would do the trick. She lofted the point of heavy Gingher scissors directly at Gus.

"I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a little intimidated by having _two _Christmas dinners to go to. Your parents have nice Christmases, and mine are—are—"

He tried to help her out. "Intense?"

"Fun," she started, glaring—but the glare faded, "and, yeah—intense. Especially since the boys became stubborn adolescents."

Her nephews, crammed into one house, and if Joy came there'd be a screaming infant, and … Gus tried not to visibly shudder. He sent another call to Shawn's phone, and, once more, it went directly to voicemail. He clicked his tongue, flicked his head, exasperated. "It's nine-thirty at night. Why isn't Shawn answering? He never has his phone off."

Juliet saw that Gus's increased annoyance was about to take a dive into anxiety. They'd had a really lovely evening together. Gus had been home since four-thirty, and Juliet arrived far ahead of her typical hour. With the internet down at the station, the access to databases was cut off. It limited the amount of paperwork she could file. Other than Shawn and Lassiter's outstanding interest in Waterstone's suicide, Juliet didn't have much to turn her professional eye upon. So, she'd come home, cooked a wonderful three-course meal; they'd played a couple rounds of gin-rummy, talked, speculated on Shawn's new employment, and Gus had settled in to read pamphlets on new pharmaceuticals (his wife prosaically referred to them as "pills"), while Juliet revisited her creativity. But Gus and Shawn talked nearly every night, recapping their day's adventures, filling one another in on case work. Tonight was different.

"Is that what's bothering you?"

"Only a little. I expected him to call earlier, tell me how it went at the Country Club."

"He could be asleep. Maybe he had a long day. Or he's just busy."

"Doing what?" Gus asked, his innocence demanding an answer beyond the one that came and went through Juliet's mind. He read her expression, the quick, twitchy way she returned to cutting. "Ohh, that." His mouth tightened, his posture attempted to straighten itself even more. "Well, as for that, I've been calling his phone for the last thirty minutes, every _five _minutes, and if Shawn needs more time than that, then there really _is _something wrong."

Juliet felt a faint touch of whimsy. Shawn told Gus everything, whether or not Gus wanted to hear it. "Yeah, and how long _does _it take, do you think?"

"I don't think, love, I _know_. And, no, I'm not telling." He felt a little like telling. "Except to say that the first time, it took all of forty-five to fifty-five minutes."

A laugh boiled up from within, scattered the silence of the living room, until Juliet swallowed it down. Her eyes brightened and her face reddened. She cut, snipped corners, and relaxed. She wasn't going to let Shawn's disinterest in answering Gus's call bother her. "I knew something was bothering you tonight. I really thought it might've been my chicken."

"It was delicious. Your ratio of rosemary to thyme was perfect." Gus finally set the phone aside. If Shawn wasn't going to answer, that was Shawn's problem. He picked up the thick pamphlet, feigning interest in its technical wordiness.

"What about the salad?"

"It was exceptional." He waggled eyebrows at her. "And dessert was good, too."

"I wish I could cook more often." She ran scissors up the pant leg pattern piece, one second calm, another second allowing the statement to drift through her, untouched—and then allowing it to expand. "Gus!" Her hand smothered his ankle. It rocked his whole body. He almost tossed the pamphlet into the air, she'd scared him so. "I have an idea!"

When she looked like that, all twinkly and full of starlight, he knew to be afraid. "Uh-oh. What practical joke are you planning now? Just so you know, I'm not hiring anyone to wear a plastic sea monster suit again. And if you make me taste fake blood for a third time, Juliet, I'm having our marriage annulled."

"No practical joke." She went too his lap, spun her arms around his neck. This would take some maneuvering for him to agree. "It's about Christmas. And the fact that I wish I could cook more."

He went limp. "You want to have Christmas—here?"

Juliet nodded, and started announcing ideas as they came to her. The tinkling of bells in the distance stopped her. In a dash, she found her phone on the kitchen counter and pulled it to her ear.

"O'Hara."

She listened, stricken numb after the Chief's first sentence. Hanging up with only a grumble, Juliet slowly entered the living room. Gus looked so calm, peaceful, like a banal summer's day—and she had to ruin it. The way she delivered it, blathering and breathless, might've been comical if the situation and nouns were far removed from their personal world.

"The Chief just said that there was a call in for traffic routing around Castillo Street to help out emergency crews trying to put out a fire at the Tanglevine Club and she was worried that Shawn and Carlton might be there."

Not only did Gus feel sick, but his heart beat so fast that his blood seemed to be aerated. He felt like froth. Like sick, disgusting, ugly green froth. After a deep inhalation, a self-ridiculing curse about not listening to his gut, Gus's courage thickened. Juliet still held her phone. She was dressed, still, too, and her shoes were on. Gus had removed his hours ago. It must take a man ages to get shoes on. "Go get in the car. I'll be there in a second."

Juliet went, having the presence of mind to take the car keys as she went out the door, and shove her phone into the pocket of her bum-around-the-house jeans. The car engine had just turned over when Gus appeared, the phone to his ear. To call—whom? Henry Spencer? Surely Vick would've called Henry _first_ and O'Hara second, third, fourth.

"Lassiter's not answering his phone either," Gus announced. He was glad Juliet was driving. His nerves couldn't have dealt with Santa Barbara drivers. Once going through an internal list of who he could call, he dialed a number and had someone to talk to.

"Yeah, I've already heard, Gus," Henry said. "Are you on your way over there now?"

"Do you need us to pick you up?" Gus's way of asking if Henry was okay to drive.

"No, I'm good. I'll see you there."

"Take Bath or Ortega in, but don't go on Castillo or Cota. We heard that's where the fire engines are."

"Right."

Henry hung up, tossing the phone in the next seat. His hands gripped on the steering wheel, massaged to pat fears and anxieties. At least he was driving. It gave him another necessity to focus on. But his worry flowed in waves. "Shawn, Shawn, when are you going to _quit _getting into trouble?"

He could just barely hear Maddie's voice, what she'd said the last time Shawn had entered a direful situation. Saying it out loud brought a touch of comfort.

"Plenty of time for him to live a quiet life when he's an old man. If he _lives _to be an old man."

Arm stretched to reach the mobile, Henry hit speed dial #3. He had no idea what time zone Maddie was in, and he didn't much care; he only needed to talk to her. She could see, speak and enlarge the small speck of sense in a situation that could not contain more sense than what fit on the head of a pin.

Maddie's voice broke with fatigue. "What is it, Henry?"

He blinked, sucked on his lips to keep them from trembling, and swallowed all of it down. "It's Shawn."

-x-

Shawn continued to believe that it was not his destiny to burn to a crisp, or die of smoke inhalation, there in the basement of his favorite Santa Barbara watering hole. Or perhaps now his second favorite. Tom Blair's Pub was starting to appeal to Shawn again, more and more, despite the fact that their redecorating a couple years ago had been a total fiasco. Who mixes a palm tree motif with weird-looking cranes? But after tonight, assuming he got out of there completely intact—well, _of course _he would—he was going to start patronizing Tom Blair's place again. It wouldn't be the same. With new staff at Tom's, nobody knew his name. The Vine was where everybody knew his name. He'd played the piano there, for heaven's sake, and he'd dressed in drag and DJ'd one night, and he'd gotten into a bar fight there, and he'd gotten hit on there, and he'd seen the goriest of gory suicides there…

"Find anything yet?"

Lassie's voice sounded faint—he was tired—and Shawn couldn't blame him. Smoke had trickled in from the panel door. The fire alarm upstairs was blaring, so damn loud that Shawn could hardly imagine how loud it actually was on the floor above. They had been scanning the large room for any way out. Anything at all. There had to be something. Another room. A secret passage. A hidden staircase. _Something_. No one built a speakeasy without first building a secret room attached to a secret room. Why have one secret room when you can have two?

Shawn's fingertips and palms were sore from running them along coarse limestone blocks for the last seven minutes. He was trying to do it all at once: find a seam out of which flowed cold air, find a catch release on a knob of one of the blocks, and feel with his feet if any hidden panel lay in the floor. So far, no luck. Lassiter, on the other side of the room, hadn't encountered anything that perked their hope. They were running out of wall.

The smoke stung Shawn's eyes. He winced, tightening his eyelids to keep the smoke away, and let his frustration out in brief grunts and the occasional swear word in another language. At the tail end of one expletive, the background changed. The atmosphere altered.

He could hear Lassie's shoes sliding on the gritty floor. Then—nothing. It was quiet. The stillness burned their ears.

The alarms had stopped.

Carlton could barely detect Shawn's shape. He looked tall, fully black, an opaque splotch against dark gray. In the blear of life this crisis had caused him, he was relieved to be with Shawn. So many other crises had come and gone, but then there had been no Shawn to bless the triumph of living another day. "The alarms are off. That can't be good."

"Maybe all the power's been shut off. Could've been done by firefighters."

"Even so, how are they going to know we're down here?"

"Mike will tell them. Meantime, let's keep feeling up these walls. It's almost to the point where it's turning me on."

The joke was tacky, but Lassiter appreciated it anyway. He tried adding to it. "This is more action than I ever got in high school."

"Oddly enough, Lassie, I believe you. Is that why you're always groping me, making up for lost time?"

Carlton couldn't respond immediately. He wanted to say yes, since a part of him felt that was true. And a part of him wanted to say no, that when he was with Shawn he just wanted to be younger so the two of them might spend a few extra decades together. While it was quiet, he made a suggestion. "Do you hear anything upstairs?"

The two of them stayed motionless. It was difficult to ascertain any noise coming from the restaurant. The subfloor above them was built of the same limestone, cut horizontally with exposed thick beams. They wouldn't be able to hear a shout, a cry, a heavy footfall of a firefighter even though their lives depended on it.

Shawn wrenched around. "I feel something," he proclaimed.

Carlton's shoulders fell by ten degrees. "Now you have a psychic vibration? Your spirit guides have really great timing."

Shawn did feel something, but it was physical, not spiritual. He didn't intend to have any psychic vibrations there and then, anyway, and if he did have spirit guides, he was giving them a big fat "F" for failing him tonight. But he felt something cold brushing against his hand. A straight stream of air colder than the ambient temperature. Shawn stepped into it, holding out his wrist to feel it as best he could, trying to follow it as best he could. The stream guided him to the stretch of wall that he'd just started inspecting when the alarms fell dead. He held his hand over the small crack where the air slipped free.

"Lassie, over here."

Quickly, Carlton inspected the area. He started by sniffing it. "The air's clean. No smoke. Smells like flowers."

Shawn flicked his wrist with a pointer finger out. "Shh—shht. Just a second. I heard something."

Carlton's imagination found new life in the dark. Could be bats. Could be a firefighter shouting for them. Could be a wall collapsing after being beaten away by flames. No—he couldn't think about that yet—how the Vine would be gone—ash and soot and blackened debris—and that they might be part of that debris if they didn't find a way out.

Shawn sent his ear into the hole in the wall. He listened. It was metallic, beautiful: it was the drip of water into a shallow pool. "There's a room or something on the other side of this wall."

Lassiter's speech was strained through a tight, wheezy cough—a cough trying not to be about the smoke. "How do you want us to get in? Oh, wait, I know, you can ask your spirit guides to open the door for us."

The next sound Shawn emitted was not nice. For forgiveness, Carlton patted Shawn's back, but Shawn was already picking at a seam of mortar around the minuscule hole. His pocket knife was significantly more efficient. The mortar melted from the wall, piling up on the floor by Shawn's knees. It was far less smoky closer to the ground, and Shawn paused in his diligent digging to tug at Lassie's tie, get him to kneel. Carlton found a use in removing mortar chips from Shawn's workspace. The air came in stronger now that the hole was bigger. Lassiter's mind swirled, like the smoke, but brought him clarity and not a sense of his impermanence.

"You know, Shawn," he coughed mildly again, "it's hitting me that—"

"Please," Shawn said, "don't start penning sonnets of lost love just yet, Lass. We'll get out of here. In five or ten minutes, give or take. Plenty of more sunrises and sunsets in our future—and if you want to write those sonnets for me, I'll be happy to read them. But just now, sentimentality is about on par with last wishes. So just forget it and help me dig."

For a moment, he was touched by the temporariness of everything, too, with the same fleeting feeling of helplessness that'd possessed Lassie. He held Carlton's chin and kissed him, then continued digging, shifting his position slightly. His right knee went lopsided, hitting a funny runnel in the floor's lay of wooden slats. The knife stopped, was passed off to Carlton. Shawn's eyes were glued to the darkness that covered the floor.

"Take over. I think I found something interesting."

Holding the iPhone's screen against the floor, Shawn's other hand pressed down the funny runnel. As he suspected, it ran a crooked line that began at the seam with the hole in it, and ended at the lower right leg of the Old Patriarch's desk. Though Shawn was sure he'd been in that room a total five years—it was like stepping into Bluebeard's locked room—he hadn't paid much attention to that desk, except to note its antiquity, its modest cover of dust, that it held as much paper trash as the whole limestone cube.

He pressed his thumb along the Corinthian styled leg, all the way up till it hit a round leafy ornamental cinquefoil in the column's capital. The cinquefoil depressed. A click sounded from a source nearby. The flow of cold air increased by a thousand percent. Carlton and Shawn looked into the new small doorway now in the wall. The hole they'd been picking at was definitely a seam to a hidden door, the door to a hidden room. The air from it smelled a little less clean than it had at first, with a sourness and sweetness to it, deeper and almost as cloying as the smoke.

Shawn's stomach churned, his innards tightening. "I know that smell. It's perfume."

Lassiter rushed in ahead of Shawn. With the lights from their mobiles illuminating the unexplored room, they soon found the source of the aroma. Shawn hid a little behind Carlton. Both of them might be used to the sight of dead bodies, but it was still a shock for Shawn to come across one—especially one that was fresh enough to be recognizable.

The body was Kalea's, the former maid of Rufus Waterstone. How strange to see her lifeless, in a shallow bit of black, black water, her eyes closed, her expression free of pain, peaceful as if she slept. Her hair, the thick tip of the ponytail, had wicked up the moisture, so her head shone, glossy and sleek as onyx in the moving light of their mobile screens. The blouse was some light, airy polyester thing, pale yellows, pinks and greens, over the simple, straight stem of her legs. She looked like a lily—Tennyson's "Lily Maid of Astolat."

Shawn's face pushed against Carlton's shoulder. "I always did have trouble with maids."

The comment led Lassiter to voice his suspicions. "She hasn't been here long." He pressed Shawn's arm, a gesture for him to stay put, then moved in to inspect Kalea. "Not much lividity, and no pooling of fluids. No signs of of injury. I don't think she was killed here. It looks like she—"

"Like she just went to sleep." He was going to say something about Elaine and Lancelot, but his tongue stuck and his focus waned.

"'Let her tomb be costly,'" Carlton muttered, thinking it was an expensive yet dreary place for a young woman to die. And why was she there? Was she guilty of a crime, and had it caught up with her? "She must've known something about Waterstone that she didn't tell us. The way he died. Why he did. Who Christopher Sly was."

Carlton was more of a "Why" and "Who" man; Shawn, at times, was more of a "How" man. How would Kalea know about that room? If she didn't, who brought her here? With the room's secrecy pretty intact, it was a decent place to hide a dead body.

"Why bring a body here? If Waterstone _was _murdered, the killer didn't have a single qualm about leaving his body in the elements. But this is discreet. No one would've ever found her here." Carlton retained questions better if he spoke them. Without knowing what else they might run into down there, he had to remember as much as possible.

Shawn took another look at Kalea, pityingly, said something to himself that might help her spirit—if it was there—cope—and help him cope, too. He wanted to inspect the dripping noise. It might be water. A rivulet. They weren't that far from the ocean, really. There might be an underground water source, one that could lead them to a sewer, and the sewer might lead to an exit.

Lassiter's phone highlighted a lifetime's worth of cobwebs and dust upon a rickety, handmade wooden shelf. With a creepy sensation causing the back of his neck to tingle, Carlton brushed the coat of brown grime from the nearest artifact. He picked it up, his eyes unbelieving. The label had hardly faded in such a lightless place. "Free Street Gin—Windsor, ONT—1927." Carlton picked up another—from the same distillery. There were also several bottles of wine, most from Ontario, a few from Quebec, one from Australia—a 1921 bottle of merlot. Each was probably worth a small fortune. The Mikes, Carlton thought, would be rich. They owned the property and everything on it. The Mikes would have money to rebuild the old restaurant, assuming that the fire didn't strike these bottles. And if it did, that would be the end of him, the end of Shawn. Carlton carefully put back the merlot. His hands, he knew, were shaking.

"Well, I think I figured out another piece of the Hayworths' fortune," he said, trying to keep it comical. "Rum-running."

"Rum-running? Lass, do you think this stream of water goes anywhere?"

"Let's just keep following it." He grabbed Shawn's elbow, winding down to take his hand. Shawn's palm and fingers were hot but clammy. As he took careful steps along the stream, it being nothing greater than watershed following a brief rain shower, Carlton's postulations on rum-running were explained.

"Those racks over there are full of imported spirits from the 1920's. Most of them are from Canada. Canada's laws of prohibition were kind of—well, I don't want to say lax in case that reflects badly on Canada's law enforcement—but they let some businesses continue to produce for the sake of exportation. Canada's beer was probably its foremost export at the time. But there used to be a lot of rum-running going on, too, between Canada and the U.S. If Americans weren't making moonshine or bathtub gin, they got their stuff from Canada and from other countries, as long as it was smuggled in."

"I suppose Mr. Hayworth owned some docks and boats," Shawn said.

"Oh, a few dozen at least."

"And you said you thought the Hayworths owned this bar at some point in history."

"Yeah, but that would've been before Olivia Hayworth's father's time."

"What happened to the Hayworths? Why didn't they keep the bar?"

"That is a very good question." Lassiter stopped, spotting a shift of one hue of black upon another hue of black, but all he saw was the end of a rat's tail. They were heading towards civilization. "Milton Hackett had his mob family, which a lot of us presume is based loosely on the Hayworths—he had them split apart when the son married someone unsuitable and was disowned. Could be that Hackett was garnering inspiration directly from the Hayworths. None of the surviving members of that line must know about the secret room or they would've cleaned out those priceless spirits before they sold the joint. I can't explain why Kalea was here."

Shawn rummaged through the connections, those he'd forged himself and those that had been forced upon him. "I'm sensing that you found a bottle of Australian wine on that million-dollar rack."

Carlton almost tripped. He regained his balance, gripping Shawn's hand tighter. His usual response was to ask Shawn how he'd guessed that, but had finally learned that it was a dumb, pointless inquiry. Maybe Shawn himself didn't know. "You think Kalea and the Hayworths and Waterstone are all connected."

It was not a question. Shawn heard the flatness of an everyday comment. Not only did he think that the Hayworths, Kalea and Waterstone were connected, but Scobie was involved, too. Shawn tugged at Lassie's hand. "Come on. I think I see some light ahead."

He wasn't just "seeing" it: he was _seeing _it. The two finished the dash in the sewer by meeting a grate over their heads. The light was filmy, orange, produced by a sodium vapor street lamp not far away. Carlton climbed the steel ladder rungs, tried to lift the grate but was unsuccessful. His hand could fit through the bars, and he did this while hooting, shouting, calling as much attention to himself as he could. Shawn joined in with the yelling. It felt good to free up those bundles of inner tension.

"Someone's coming," Carlton said, his hand landing on the top of Shawn's moist hair.

The orange illumination was blocked by a figure, the muted odor of smoke coming with him. Neither Shawn nor Carlton, who was closest, could distinguish telling features of their soon-to-be rescuer. A powerful flashlight beam caused Carlton to wince, turn away, and Shawn grimaced at the light when it landed on him.

"Shawn—Detective Lassiter." The heavy male voice was vaguely familiar, with a slight inner-city accent. "We've been looking for you."

Mike. The name suddenly popped into Shawn's head. Not Mike B. or Mike C.—it was Dobson's Mike. The good-looking _firefighter _that Dobson had been with for ten years, that lived close by, near Dobson's work, near the firehouse, too. Competent, heroic Mike. He'd just started his firefighting career—Shawn remembered hearing Mike talk about it, and Dobson proudly beaming, the night of the "OMG BAR FIGHT!"

The flashlight fanned back and forth. "You two all right?"

"We're alive. Tired," Carlton said.

"And we found a dead body, so that really upped our blood pressure and our excitement," Shawn said, "not to mention our dire need to leave a building that was on fire."

"We got the fire out. Was mainly confined to the kitchen. Sprinklers and firewalls did most of the work keeping the flames from going everywhere. Right. Stay here. I'll get someone to open this grate."

Carlton hopped down when Dobson's Mike had gone. Arms wrapped around Shawn's neck, he pulled them close together. "See, we're safe."

Shawn dug his nose around Carlton's chest. All he could see was Kalea when he closed his eyes. She seemed to meld incongruently with the last image of Summer, brains blasted and skull deformed. He inhaled deeply. Lassie smelled like smoke, a little like Degree antiperspirant, vaguely of dust and sewer; but entirely of homey good things, relaxing Sunday mornings and sunshine on the beach. "Lass, I think I'm getting too old for this sh—"

"Shawn!"

Shawn and Carlton peeked between the sewer cover's bars. The streetlight showed three faces: Henry, Gus and Juliet. Shawn darted up the ladder and took his dad's hand.

"Are you—"

"We're fine. Just want to get out of here. Kalea's dead, FYI. Waterstone's assistant. She's—uh—well, we found her." She'd looked like someone had plucked her from a bouquet of wildflowers and laid her there, to desiccate and fade to bones.

Henry wanted to make those quintessential detective queries still part of his system of thought, but decided now was not the time. If Shawn had any psychic ability, it led him to stumble over dead bodies. "It'll be taken care of. We'll focus on getting you and Carlton out of here first."

Gus would not let this go, as glad as he was to see Shawn alive and breathing. "Next time I call, answer your phone, Shawn!"

"Dude, we were in the basement. It's not like it gets the best reception. Reminds me of the grotto where Skywalker fought the Rancor."

This stymied Gus momentarily, but not Juliet.

"Wow, was there a portcullis?" she asked. Gus and Henry looked at her, and Shawn titled his head. "What? I'm just trying to clarify—never mind then. Why were you in the basement?"

"Can we talk about this later, Jules? I don't need the third-degree right now. We just barely missed getting literal third-degrees."

She stuck her hand through the grate, taking Shawn's fingers and pressing them. "I'm glad you're third-degree free."

"Thanks. Can one of you go over to Café del Sol and get me an order of pollo ensolsado, and an order of carne guisada for Carlton—"

"And some taquitos," threw in Carlton.

"We're starving."

Juliet nudged Gus to stop his mouth before he said what he'd soon regret. Yes, Shawn and Carlton had seen a dead body, had almost been caught in a fire, but if that had happened to her, she would want to overload on comfort food, too. "I'll go," she said, feeling altruistic.

As she rose, Dobson's Mike came back with a crew. They cleared away Henry and Gus, ordered Shawn and Lassiter to step back, and started the grate removal.

Shawn was too tired to overdramatize his climb to freedom. As soon as he was out of the sewer, Henry hugged him tightly, feathered his hair, held his face and smiled gently. Henry and Carlton made motions to hug, but stopped awkwardly, looked at each other, looked away, and finally agreed to shake hands. The display of paternal affection both satisfied and embarrassed Shawn.

"Dad, does this mean we can keep the paint chips a little longer?"

Henry didn't answer. "Still have your phone?"

Shawn was happy to see all the bars lined up on the screen. "And it's working again, hooray for that! Remind me to write an angry letter to Verizon. In this day and age, there's no excuse for a phone not to work in—"

"Shut up and call your mother," Henry said, poking his son in the chest.

Shawn palliated his mother's fears while trained medical crews examined him for injuries, wrapped him in blankets, and gave him something hot to drink. Really, he was just ready to go home. The amount of fire damage to the interior of the Vine seemed to be pretty minimal, so he heard from the Mikes. Mike C. had come back as soon as Mike B. had told him about the fire.

"I freaked when he told me you two were in the basement," Mike B. said to Shawn and Carlton. "But the panel door was shut, and I thought you must've gotten out when the alarm was tripped."

"We have some stuff to tell you," Lassiter started.

Mike B. waved a hand. "McNab already told us about the dead body. The rest of it can wait until tomorrow." He threw a glance at Mike, reading it—they had known one another about as long as Shawn and Gus had known one another—then returned the look to Carlton. "All right. Tell. You can't tell us anything so bad that it'll crush our spirits. They've already been pretty crushed tonight."

Lassiter's innate ability to be concise and succinct hadn't suffocated in the smoke, or drowned in the ankle-deep murky water in the sluices. "Shawn found an old hidden room off the basement. Looks like it was the storage room for when the place was a speakeasy, because there are racks and racks of alcohol still in it." He paused, drawing it out until the Tanglevine owners' faces were pure befuddlement. "Imported wines, spirits and beers from all over the world, some of it probably pretty rare. Maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars worth. Maybe millions."

The speechless Mikes gaped. Henry sputtered out snickers of amazement, spurred on by relief and happiness for the Mikes. Gus's voice started to speak, but couldn't get beyond crackling like an old radio. Shawn smiled. Perhaps there was a reason for everything, after all, like getting stuck in creepy cellars, finding dead bodies, plodding through sewers with the man of his dreams.

"I think you'll have enough money to fix the Vine up after the fire, and have enough left over to finish the remodel."

Shawn clapped them on the shoulders. They were nice guys. Business savvy. Knew the names of their regulars and how to keep them fed and happy. They deserved this.

Shawn turned to the approaching figures, Dobson's Mike in his firefighter gear, minus helmet and jacket, and Dobson himself in a lightweight coat that covered plaid pajama bottoms and an old SBPD shirt. Shawn was thankful to be surrounded by friendly faces, but he was done. He wanted home, food, Carlton, quiet. A gurney with a black plastic body bag wheeled near the coroner's van. Shawn gulped. Home, food, Carlton, quiet—and a case to think about—an unusual suicide, a potential homicide. The Hayworths, Scobie, Waterstone and Kalea. Thousands of dollars worth of liquor in a secret room. Papers, photographs and history that needed organizing and archiving.

_My God_, Shawn thought. _What a mess. I'm almost too tired to do this._

Lassiter looked at Dobson's Mike, the one who seemed to hold the permission to send them off to freedom. Carlton didn't ask. He just told.

"Shawn and I are going home now." He heard Shawn whinge and amended. "As soon as Detective O'Hara gets here with our dinner."

The ring of his phone sounded obnoxious in the din of ambulance and fire engine motors, footfalls on the pebbly road, and far, far off the indistinct grumble of the ocean. Lassiter knew the number, and strengthened his inner poise before enunciating a flat greeting.

Vick knew how to keep it short and simple. "Should I be there?"

"Absolutely not."

"You all right?"

"Fine. Coroner's office has the body."

"Who was it?"

"Waterstone's maid, Kalea What's-her-name."

"Ah. I'll talk to the M.E. in the morning."

"I can do that."

"You'll be busy."

"Doing what?"

"Sleeping in. Don't get here before noon tomorrow, Lassiter, or I'll write you up." Vick slammed the phone down, smirking to herself.


	12. Chapter of Time

**Note: The quick updates are the result of rigorous work, on my part, to have this story done by Christmas. It's been hanging around far too long.  
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-x-

Oh weary night, O long and tedious night  
>Abate my hours! Shine comfort from the east…<br>And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye,  
>Steal me awhile from mine own company.<br>(_AMND_, III.2)

12.

Upon entering through the tricky back door, the first thing Shawn did was fall, languidly, dramatically, across the dining room floor. Amazing how being within a dry place, whose scents were well known, increased the intensity of his stinky wet clothes and potentially foul body odor.

Lassiter left plastic bags stuffed with takeaway on top of the washing machine. "We'll have to heat these up later."

Shawn went into a ghoulish moan, writhing.

Carlton removed his shoes and every unnecessary article of clothing. Shawn didn't even flinch as Carlton tugged off shoes, rolled him over from belly to back with a toe. "You'd better get up before whatever's attached to you sprouts and you're stuck to the ground like that."

"Birthing ugly amoebas and watery slugs. Yeah, I know. I just don't wanna. _So _tired, Lassie."

It was nicer to have someone do the disposal of clothes for him. Carlton wasted no time straddling Shawn, lifting off his shirt, unfastening belt buckle and the button at the waistband of his jeans. It required too little effort for a sarcastic remark about engaging in welcome debauchery when they'd just walked through the door, though Shawn contemplated it, even opened his mouth before stopping himself. He was in no mood for the ease and unintelligent wit of sarcasm. Lassie was off him quickly, anyway, and transported him into the bathroom.

The shower streamed out cold water that soon steamed. Very quiet, very lethargic, Carlton denuded Shawn of every bit of cloth, damp or dry, clean or dirty, and gently helped him into the claw-footed tub. The reason Shawn had fallen in love with that house in the first place, that bathtub. It seemed like a long time ago. And, back then, he never would've dreamed of Carlton joining him in the tub, or, in this case, the shower. As soon as Carlton was under the hot water, the night's gag-worthy collection of stink wafted from him and disappeared.

Lassiter dumped body wash gunk from a bottle onto the top of Shawn's shoulder and scrubbed with a small round loofa. Just as he was beginning to see the tattles of Shawn Spencer's mind running a hundred miles a minute—far more than the average man—Carlton spoke instead.

"I suppose there could be a reason for everything," he began, picking up where they'd left off in the car ride home. "And I would've liked it if you'd told me about the matching chairs hours ago. But I don't think you should skip work tomorrow. You'll be able to find out more there than I will. Anyway," he pretend-slugged Shawn on the chin, "I think you kind of like it there. Rinse."

Shawn barely had time to shut his eyes before Lassie was spraying him in the face with the handheld shower head. Thick white suds of sandalwood-scented soap shimmied down his body and tumbled into the drain. Once the stream was away from his face, Shawn could retort. "Of course I like working there. But I don't really want to work with a killer. Now, Lassie, be honest: Would you really send your beloved to a potentially hostile and life-threatening workplace? H'mm?"

"I'm a cop, Shawn. And you've been hurt more times on cases than I have, for a psychic detective. My turn." He handed Shawn the shower head, its many massage settings set to a plain rain shower. Having someone else shampoo his hair and scrub his back shattered the last of his prickly anxieties.

"Don't worry, I'll go to work tomorrow. I might ask some questions," he flinched when Lassiter glared, "but nothing that no newbie wouldn't want to ask. And what are you going to do?"

"Recheck Kalea's alibi for the time Waterstone was killed, and do a full background check on her."

"I doubt she has a criminal record. Close your eyes."

The smell of shampoo was far more appealing than the stench of sewer. Carlton waited until the water stopped flowing across his nose and mouth; he'd been holding his breath. Felt like he'd been holding his breath for hours.

"I want to know who she is, where's she's from," Carlton persisted, eyes taking on that hard, hungry gleam. "I want to know as much as I can about her. If she ever had so much as an overdue video rental, I want to know when it was and what the movie was. I want to know who her boyfriend was in high school. Who her friends were."

"Well," Shawn paused, unsure if he was basking in the glory of Lassiter's commitment to solving the mystery of Kalea, or if he was only a smidgen afraid of what would happen when Lassie realized he'd wasted his time, "if you're doing all of that, you might actually find out something useful. I can say for sure that Kalea really did have the run-in with Lady Olga that she'd told us about. Lady O confirmed it when I talked to her. For the sake of changing the subject, how much did you ever uncover about me? Back in the day, I mean."

The creepy smirk from Carlton told Shawn what he wanted to know.

"That much, huh? That's so unfair. I don't know a whole lot about your past."

"You know more than I ever thought anyone would find out—at least after Victoria. And Victoria didn't know everything."

"Just the important things." Shawn put a washcloth to use cleaning behind Carlton's ears. "Tell me something about you that I don't know. And no lying. Remember." He held his hand up, 'C' shaped with thumb and fingers, next to his head. "I'll know if you're lying. Do my ears."

Carlton scrubbed Shawn's ears and neck. What was there to tell? His past seemed like the Odd Adventures of someone he couldn't recognize now as being a miniature and immature version of himself. One moment, occurring; the next moment, a faded recollection. "I had a crush on my sixth grade algebra teacher."

"That's amazing." Shawn sounded truly astonished.

By then, Carlton understood the mechanics of Shawn's thought process, not always able to anticipate where it would go, but always willing to try. "You mean, not that I had a crush a teacher, but that I was in algebra in the sixth grade?"

"Well—both. What made this teacher of yours so dreamy?"

"He was furiously animated, like you. He explained every problem and solution like it was the most important thing in the world. The sign of a good teacher, I guess. I learned that from him. It's why I treat every case that lands in my hands as if it's the most important thing in the world. You know that phrase, 'To the world you may be one person—'"

"'But to one person you may be the world.' Yeah."

"Every dead person was the world to someone. And if they weren't, I treat them like there's someone out there who'd want to have an conclusive answer. Even Waterstone. He must've been the world to someone. Kalea, too."

"And your sexy math teacher. I'm getting pink. I think I'm done. Thanks for the help. I'd nearly forgotten what it was like to be clean."

Shawn witnessed the evolution of their relationship, that they managed to bathe together and not arouse one another. They didn't feel like they had to do that anymore. Shawn left the washcloth hanging over the crown of Carlton's head, and hurried, towel at his waist, into the bedroom for clothes. Down the hall, the rush of water ceased, and before Shawn had a chance to react, he was tackled to the bed. His wrists were grabbed above his head, his mouth taken over, his laughter lost to Carlton's.

"You are the world to me," Carlton told Shawn, serious and somber. "Be careful at work tomorrow. Extra careful."

"I promise not go into any place that's eerie, dark, and smells like anything besides horse manure. And I won't go anywhere with a stranger, because stranger's are _bad._"

"Excellent." A palm traced lightly down the inside of Shawn's arm, followed by a mixture of kisses, licks and nibbles.

Shawn wasn't yet beguiled. Lassie's tongue kind of tickled. He squirmed. Bad idea. Strong thighs pinned him in place, his captured hands pressed into the mattress. If he couldn't postpone indefinitely, he could postpone for a moment. "What was it you said when we were by Kalea's body? Something about her tomb being expensive."

"Tennyson," Carlton said, then returned to the greedy devouring of Shawn's collarbone. "_Idylls of the King_."

"Lancelot and Elaine."

"The lovable lily maid. Why?"

"Just reading your thoughts—apparently."

"If you keep talking like this, you're not reading my thoughts right now."

"Then give me the good stuff. Don't hold out on me."

Lassiter simpered, and went in for heavy breathing along the nape of Shawn's neck, a nip at the bottom of his ear. Finally, Shawn was able to focus. So what if they couldn't bathe together without temptation? Let that be for other couples. That might be them in ten years.

"Wait a second, Pooch."

But everything he said was inaudible to Lassie. Everything he did, however, was amplified by millions of activated nerves.

Shawn engaged in a moment of awkward maneuvering, and without his usual dexterity, dismissed the plush bath towel from its unwanted position between him and Lassie.

-x-

The house greeted Shawn with darkness and coolness as he woke. If he'd been to sleep at all, which he doubted, it hadn't been more than a nap. He was surprised to see the oven clock set at 5:11. Seemed earlier than that. But since he was up, he was up. With certain texts weighing down his thoughts, Shawn was ready to do something. However comfy and soft and warm it was to lie in bed with Lassie, Shawn wanted to _do_. A man got tired of just existing in the moment.

He started a pot of expensive single-source light roast, about the only coffee in the world he could stand to drink, and fumbled around the house turning on low-wattage table lamps, checking the house plants' moistness, checking to see if the morning newspaper had been delivered.

In the Nautical Room, the only room in the house with a definite design, since Shawn's arrival had somewhat distorted the Simple Asian Spa theme of Carlton's bedroom, Shawn browsed the titles on the bookcase. Lassiter had several volumes of Shakespeare's complete works, and the two missing volumes remained one of those mysteries of Carlton Lassiter's past that Shawn meant to uncover in the future. He did not want the Shakespeare. He wanted Tennyson. He heaved and rolled his eyes, realizing that _Idylls of the King _was a whole lot longer than he remembered from one of his last high school English courses. They'd studied some of it, but, damn it, not all of it! Nonetheless, he left it in his lap, then thought, since he was there, maybe he should browse _Love's Labour's Lost_. Or he could skip the text and watch the weird musical version. It had to be weird. Alicia Silverstone and Kenneth Branagh in a movie_ together_. What _wasn't _weird about that? Shawn found what he was looking for—Carlton had come before him. There was a note at the beginning of the play.

"I knew you'd get here eventually. Love you. -C"

Lassiter had said that he'd gone to the library to look up _Love's Labour's Lost_, but must have put the note in his own copy for Shawn to find. Parting with that flaccid feeling that came over him at times—the endurable torture of being in love—Shawn carried the books to the living room. He got coffee, loaded with sugar and a touch of cream, and began to read. He got a scene into _Love's Labour's Lost_ and then discovered, amusingly, that Carlton had been right. The play was difficult to read. It toyed wickedly with Shawn's intellect. Maybe 5:20 in the morning was way, _way _too early for any Shakespeare.

He tried a little of _Idylls of the King_, but faced the same dilemma. Uncovering the quote Lassiter had used proved satisfactory for Shawn. He shut the book, let it join Shakespeare, and dragged his dog-eared notebook to his lap, favorite pen at the ready. Time to practice what he was good at: nonsensical summations of the case, connections that were so disconnected nobody hardly ever spotted them, and that wonderful sortilege that unfolded as he wrote.

Carlton woke with Shawn already gone from bed, and a serious formation of doubt superseding his ideas of a quiet morning. The sun was up, too, unforgivably bright, but doused occasionally by low and fast clouds. A sense of gloom came with the sudden rushes of darkness. It was only six in the morning. Too early to be pessimistic. And a fantastic amount of love-making hours ago seemed like wasted karma. One couldn't store up relaxation. There was always villainy to ruin it. Nevertheless, he dressed in jeans and one of Shawn's t-shirts—too tired to dig out one of his own, and Shawn's were handier. In the hall, he spotted Shawn curled up at one end of the sofa, awake. A coffee mug on the table—Shawn abstained from coffee the way most do from alcohol—and a pile of books nearby. Shawn's notebook was against his knees, his pen flying, heedless of paper's blue guidelines. He wrote at odd angles, wherever a note, a brainstorm, an idea happened to fit. Carlton enjoyed witnessing the mania of Shawn's disguised genius. He didn't seem much like Shawn Spencer then, but as an old school detective, like someone Milton Hackett might've written about. All Shawn needed was a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a dishonest dame to investigate.

Their only dishonest dame was dead.

Carlton leaned at the waist to kiss Shawn on top of his head. No product in it yet—Shawn hadn't done up his hair and he was barely dressed.

"There's coffee in the pot," Shawn announced, unable to look up from his work. All Lassiter saw was a muddle of phrases in English and Swedish. If Carlton hadn't figured out by now that most of Shawn Spencer's talent was almost as legitimate as police work, Shawn figured his excessive vigilance and nearly eidetic memory were safe from discovery, shielded from exploitation. Carlton believed there remained in Shawn a mystical trait—part magic, part psychology—and he'd never figure it out.

"How long have you been up?"

"I don't know," Shawn answered offhand. "The fifth hour and some minutes. I didn't expect you up so soon." He raced to keep Lassie from talking about it. Shawn knew it bothered Carlton, on a primal level, whenever he woke and Shawn wasn't in bed next to him, like he was afraid he'd find Shawn had taken off again. Shawn's feet were firmly planted. When Lassiter sat down, armed with coffee a pale and sickly shade of tan, Shawn curled their fingers together. Tangled up, that's how he felt. Planted and tangled up, like his roots had taken hold of good, solid earth, and he might be able to grow—with adequate sunshine and frequent care.

"Did you get far in Tennyson?" Carlton knew the answer prior to asking. Shawn's scoffing snicker proved he was right.

"No. I read it in high school—parts of it—but I can't remember it much."

"You read it in high school?"

Shawn situated his hand around Carlton's mouth. "Say it with me, Lassie: Advanced— Placement—English. Good boy!" He patted Carlton inside the thigh. "But you probably knew that when you pulled my school records. Or Lucinda did. No doubt she shared that info with you."

What else was Lucinda supposed to share with him? Their relationship had skidded by then, anyway, and while she'd found Shawn Spencer intriguing, Carlton had found him a nuisance. Intriguing, though? Maybe a little, the way one was intrigued by a sudden rash that defied explanation. On her final day in Santa Barbara, Lucinda had left Carlton all the information she'd gathered about Shawn Spencer in a file on his desk. By the time he'd gotten around to reading it, she was gone and the rash had stayed.

"You know, Shawn," his faint smile gave a hint of present jollity over an old judgment, "I thought your high school stuff was completely phony."

"You mean, you thought I wasn't that smart, couldn't be that smart, and thought I'd cheated my way into AP classes? Should've had a little more faith in me, Lassie."

"Not that you'd cheated, but maybe that you'd hacked into the system and changed your grades."

"Ah, like Ferris, you mean? No way. I was just that brilliant. You should've listened to her." He pecked Carlton on the cheek, rising for a coffee refill.

"Then—why'd you chuck it all?"

They'd only ever tackled this subject in mild, flippant ways. Carlton had pieced together Shawn's background from snippets of tales that came and went, like a bolt of lightning illuminated a freak historical outline of Shawn Spencer.

"I hated my dad. We didn't get along. Mom couldn't rule _in absentia_, and I didn't rely on her to be sympathetic or understanding. My dad wanted me to be a cop. I had other ideas. By the time I realized what those ideas were, I'd ruined my high school career, and I couldn't bear the thought of sitting in a classroom again, i.e., college. Couldn't pay for it, either. I couldn't keep a job. Everything seemed—well, I didn't have—I mean that I didn't find it interesting. I wanted to run around. Get out of Santa Barbara. See things. Meet people. Have experiences. I did that. I learned more living life than sitting in a classroom reading about the lives of other people."

"So you didn't go to college. It's not too late, you know. And with online classes, you wouldn't have to sit in a classroom. You could still go if you wanted."

Shawn looked at him over the mug, leaning against the kitchen doorway. "And study what? I do all right for myself. I got the psychic thing down—more or less. I write dumb astrology articles—more humor and bullshit than science—and that pays some bills. I have you, don't I? Nothing else really interests me. Anyway, you went to college long enough for the both of us. I bet you liked it."

Shawn returned to the sofa, only after opening the patio door a little to let in some sharp, cool morning air. It was going to be one of those infrequent warm days. The Santa Ana wind flapped junk mail on the bistro table, played with the curtains and blinds. Shawn rubbed the top of Lassiter's knee, his attempt to provoke an answer.

"I didn't mind it," said Carlton. He had a sense that Shawn knew he was understating. "All right. I liked it a lot, okay? It was the first time I could really be who I wanted to be. I had friends, and I was a decent student. Better as an undergraduate than a graduate student, but I guess I knew which was more important at the time. Did you learn anything from Tennyson?"

Shawn accepted the topic change. "Only that he was wordy, and his men, as he wrote them, were really sensitive. That must be why they call it romantic poetry. Everyone's wandering around, wooing and mooning and—what's that old word?—sparking."

"What did Willy tell you?"

"Even less."

"So you didn't realize that _Love's Labour's Lost _also has a play within a play?"

"I—it—what?"

"A play within a play."

"Like _The Taming of the Shrew._"

"The play is more defined in _Lost._ Drink your coffee. We can talk about it later. I think I'll fix us a nice breakfast. Least I can do for you," he gave Shawn a brief, soft lipped kiss, "for what you gave to me last night—twice."

"Huh," croaked Shawn. How had he missed that bit about the play within a play?

Once Carlton banged around in the kitchen, Shawn picked up the volume of Shakespeare and was determined to find where a play within a play was mentioned. Carlton instinctively knew what Shawn was up to.

"It's in the final act. Look for dialogue containing 'Worthies' and you'll be close enough."

"Damn it," muttered Shawn, detesting Carlton's savviness. He shoved the useless book aside. If he wanted to know something, all he had to do was ask Lassie. In the sorry notebook, Shawn set the nonsense in his head to words:

PWAP, what was killer trying to say? Converging stories? Converging lives? Dramatics? Literal? Also: MORE THAN ONE KILLER DUH.

-x-

Gus used his phone to determine the county library's hours. "They open at nine!" he shouted to Juliet. She was putting on her face in the faraway bathroom. She had the en suite for her own, and Gus primarily used the guest bathroom on the other side of the condo. It kept them from being in one another space in the morning. He was standing in the kitchen, nibbling a piece of whole grain toast quite casually, though he had on only a deep blue shirt, black trouser socks and a sexy pair of boxer-briefs, one of Juliet's wedding presents to him.

"I should be at the station by nine," she shouted back.

"I can go. I'll see if Shawn can go. Can't you guys look up stuff about the Hayworths at work?"

"Yeah, if the routers are working again." She'd started shouting but her voice lowered as she entered the kitchen. It was like walking in on a Cialis commercial, Gus standing there in a strong-man pose, ignorant of his appealing shape. "Are you going to get dressed, Gus, or just distract me all morning?"

"A little bit of both," his intonation hinted at the provocative—until he realized what he'd said didn't make much sense. "I mean, mostly the second part, but I am willing to forego the first part if it means—"

"Go get dressed," Juliet cut him off, pointing in the direction of the hall, and, down it, their bedroom. "I'll call Shawn."

"If he answers," Gus grumbled on his way out of the kitchen. He was still a bit miffed that Shawn hadn't disclosed his entire daily itinerary the night before.

Juliet doubted Shawn was awake. If he wasn't, Carlton would be. No matter the harrowing night Carlton Lassiter went through, he woke early the next morning. Pleasantly surprising was Shawn's wide awake greeting.

"Ah, Juliet, fair and winsome maiden, how sweetly your voice sounds on this golden autumn morning."

"Good morning to you, too, Shawn—I think." Thoughts she didn't want exploded. "So you and Lassiter managed to have fun last night, after all. Why are men so predictable? And disgusting."

"You brought it up. And how else were we supposed to forget what happened? And I'm only going to mention it to exonerate myself, but I didn't _plan _on it. So, my dear, what else can I disgust you with this morning, h'mm? I can talk about Lassie toe jam, or we can talk about Bieber Fever, or basically any of the Kardashians."

"Um." What had she been thinking, why had she called? Gus was better at this. Oh. Right. Library. Hayworths. "Gus wants to know if you can meet him at the library at nine. He wants to go through old newspapers and stuff, see if he can find something on the Hayworths."

"Can't you do that at the station?"

"Yes, I _can_." Sometimes talking to a husband and then to the husband's best friend caused a frustrating amount of repeated phrases. "But I don't know what kind of time I'll have today, and I don't even know if the routers will be up."

"I forgot the routers. Good point. Tell your spouse that I can meet him at the library at nine, but I'll have to duck out around ten if I'm going to be on time for my first day at work."

"I'll tell him. Shawn, about the Hayworths—any idea where I should start?"

"Sorry, Jules, but I don't have a clue. How about if Gus and I agree to do all the hard work, at least try to narrow down a time frame from the decades the Hayworths have been active around here, and you can later cross-reference that time frame—"

"With Waterstone. Yeah, I got it. I can do that part."

"What time is it now?"

The two of them looked at clocks in their respective living rooms. Juliet saw 7:46, and Shawn saw 7:48.

"You've got some time," Juliet said.

"So have you. Why don't you use it wisely? Nothing wrong with a little morning playfulness."

"Shawn!"

"Gotta go, Jules."

And Shawn hung up, tossing his phone back to the coffee table that held books, his feet, coffee mugs and plates emptied of vegetable-filled omelets. Lassiter had—almost beyond reason—turned on the television. They were now halfway involved in an old Barbara Stanwyck comedy. It made Shawn think. Granted, staring at a blank wall would make Shawn think. But this black and white, glitzy-gowned Stanwyck really made Shawn think.

He supposed it was still too early in the morning to call Lady Olga. Unable to grasp the entire reason for wanting to tell her that Kalea was dead, Shawn settled for wanting to call her with _half _a reason. There was the matter of his having met Lady O's cousin, Jefferson Roberts. She might even have some insight into the Captain—or Waylon Scobie. He had asked her about Rufus Waterstone—hadn't he?

"Lass."

"H'mm?"

"If you had to guess, what kind of decade are we looking at for the murder of Christopher Sly?"

Carlton fished his eyes from the glowing screen. Shawn was serious. "I don't know," but it was too easy a phrase to drop, and Carlton had no wish to dismiss the subject. "How old was Waterstone?"

"Eighty-something."

"I thought it was more like sixty-something."

"Let's just compromise and say he was in his seventies, until one of us gets to the file and looks it up."

"If he was in his seventies, he would've been born in the late Thirties or early Forties."

"So he would've been a young man in the Fifties and early Sixties. A handsome young man of influence and standing in Santa Barbara would probably skirt the same social circles as the town's loved-hated Hayworths. Am I right?"

"You're just guessing—but you might be right. We don't know a lot about Waterstone. His house was clear of journals, date books, papers, photographs. We didn't find anything."

Shawn's hands balled into fists to keep the tingle of excitement from surging through his whole body. "But he bought art, and he schmoozed with the town's artists. He would've kept records of his expensive purchases, if just for tax reasons."

"Nothing suspicions in his tax background," Carlton said. "We checked."

"But he had to have a paper trail. If it wasn't at his house, he might've left it somewhere safe."

Even Carlton couldn't keep the thought from being said. "Someplace like the basement of a friend's restaurant." He looked back at the television, disinterested in it now he was enchanted by Shawn's abstract vision.

"We didn't look at the _papers_," said Shawn, heartbeat increasing, "we looked at photographs. Did you look at any of the papers?"

"Well," Carlton's eyes darted to Shawn, then away again, the urge to exaggerate his observational skills cooling, "not really, no. I saw that some of them were deeds, tax records, old receipts, but you can't expect me to remember the details."

Of course Shawn didn't expect Carlton to remember the details. That was his, Shawn's, job. Last night, the atmosphere, the photographs, the secret basement room, had blinded Shawn to the details. He'd taken the situation for granted. He thought he knew what was in that room, and so he hadn't looked for signs to dismiss the obvious. He'd let it go. He curled against Carlton, grimacing and groaning. Carlton squeezed him around the shoulders.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. Your spirit guides were a little off last night. It happens."

"But I—I should've paid closer attention."

Carlton had an inflated image of his own importance. "Maybe you were just distracted because we were there together. We don't often investigate alone."

"We weren't there to investigate."

Carlton adopted a sour look. "Damn. That's true. We weren't. I have no explanation for our negligence."

"And it'll be ages before we can get back in there and look around."

"Calm down," urged Carlton. "This is why you shouldn't drink more than one cup of coffee in the morning. You get excited. And not the fun kind of excited, either. More like the jittery and anxious and self-deprecating excited, and it's hard for me to control. You don't exactly come with a leash, you know."

Shaw supposed he was right. He could be a handful at times.

Carlton pressed Shawn's hands. "We went to the basement doing what we were supposed to do. You didn't know, and I didn't know, that the basement and the Hayworths and Waterstone were connected."

Shawn's mind tickled. It did that. It tickled when he was close to uncovering something. It tickled when it wanted him to know that he was close to breaking the case wide open. But the aperture stayed hidden. The tickling subsided. It was gone. Darkness and ignorance reigned. Frustrated, Shawn massaged his eyes, thought about picking up the notebook but decided against it. A nice morning, free from the routine of rushing, required more than their pastiche of clues and suppositions.

The clock said 7:53. What a long morning. He'd been awake three hours already.

"Carlton?"

"H'mm?" He was back into the movie. The TV suddenly went black. Shawn had turned it off.

"Let's go back to bed for a while, Pooch."

Shawn grabbed, hauled, tugged and pulled. He succeeded in getting Carlton to his feet, but their promenade to the bedroom was stalled by suggestive caresses and far less suggestive kisses. Halfway down the hall, Shawn dashed back into the living room, caught up the volume of Tennyson, and chased Carlton into the bedroom.

-x-

Shawn was late—as usual. Gus looked at his watch. Another thirty seconds of Shawn's utter lateness had gone by. What else did he expect? He expected Shawn to be late. Having placed the expectations so low, Gus then anticipated that Shawn—changeable and mutable, especially since coming back from Indiana—Shawn would defy the expectations he was _sure _Burton Guster had established. Only, Shawn was good at picking and choosing the times he destroyed another person's expectations.

Now was clearly not one of those chosen instances.

That just figured.

Gus paced back and forth upon the lower step of the library's downtown location. He hadn't been inside the library for ages, not since the spring, when he'd needed a book on wedding etiquette. Who goes to libraries anymore? It seemed to him to be a dying thing. Soon to be as ghostly as railroad stations, and, if Shawn's prediction could be counted on, shopping malls. Maybe libraries would survive. There was something pleasant about them, a nostalgia that invoked the frolicsome gods of childhood—or maybe it was just that smell of musty old books that kept the revolving door spinning.

9:12:36.

A whole forty-five seconds since he'd last looked at his watch. Another forty-five seconds of Shawn Spencer's lateness. If Gus had counted up all the minutes of his life he'd waited for Shawn, it might amount to lost _days_.

He caught a clear prospect of the busy road, the parking lot across the street, the low trees and shrubs he didn't know the names of and knew, instinctively, that if he asked Shawn for the trees' names he would receive answers, maybe even a few of the right answers. What was he still doing here? Any best friend with self-respect would've left seven minutes ago. He thought back to what Shawn had said about being tired of running down cheating boyfriends, thieves and the occasional murderer. The heroics had been fun for a while. It warped Gus's life, made it a little less dull, and at least he'd have some stories to tell children when they were young enough to still want to be around him, and dandled, happy and cute, on his knee. But now what? The lease was already up—it had expired days ago. The landlord didn't seem in a hurry to contact them about a renewal, and not even interested—yet—in hunting them down for their rent. So—now what? What did Shawn want to do?

Despite how little Shawn dragged it out, Gus knew the rumble of the Norton's engine. He was surprised to find a helmeted, leather-clad Shawn on the cross-street. The motorcycle turned into the parking lot, vanishing behind the nameless trees and lines of stationary cars. Gus waited another couple minutes for Shawn to join him on the steps. Nearing the boiling point of his temper, Gus felt the anger dissipate. Shawn looked strange. Tired, Gus supposed. But his hair was not at its usual height of perfection, and he wore comfortable, old clothes under the jacket that Gus hadn't seen him wear in years. This was not Carlton Lassiter's influence. This was Shawn unconsciously flaunting an insecurity.

"I didn't mean to keep you waiting, buddy." Shawn slapped Gus on the arm, hoping to be forgiven quickly, or yelled at just as quickly, so they could get inside and start digging through a bunch of dusty newspapers or microfiche. He had difficulty deciding which mood Gus was in.

"I know you didn't," Gus answered, sounding far more sympathetic than he'd planned. "Let's just get inside and see what we can find. I'm getting kind of curious about it myself. I called my parents a bit ago and asked them if they knew anything about the Hayworths."

"What'd they say?"

"They said that—"

Squealing tires broke Gus's concentration. He and Shawn cast glances over their shoulders. The noise had from a black Town Car with tinted windows. It'd stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Feet from them. Gus shuddered.

"Something bad is about to go down, and it's gonna go down right on top of us."

Shawn scanned the broad, suited goon that emerged from the passenger's seat. The man said nothing, just stood there, looking at Gus and Shawn. "I had a feeling someone was following me," Shawn whispered to Gus. "But I thought I'd lost him."

"Next time, try a little harder and make your gut talk a little louder and make your bike go a little faster!"

The back window lowered several inches. No face was wholly revealed, only the outline of an alabaster cheek, a smidgen of red lipstick. The feminine voice that dealt a command was strong, icy, angry.

"Get in before Adriano makes you."

Shawn and Gus descended the staircase slowly. Shawn felt like he was on his way to the principal's office, and Gus felt like he'd been called into the boss's office. Both were afraid.

"Shawn, I've been meaning to tell you something," Gus said.

"Yeah? What's that?"

Adriano pulled open the back door. A set of legs, black pumps and a black skirt with a hem above the knee caught a bit of daylight.

Gus swatted Shawn on the stomach, more bite than camaraderie in it. "I think we shouldn't sign our next lease."

They were in the car. The door shut on them. The woman was illuminated poorly, but she was beautiful the way marble sculptures were beautiful, all finely chiseled on the outside, polished to a shine, but nothing more. Shawn thought he knew her, and he wasn't surprised to see recognition on her face, fleetingly. He was in trouble. Again. Maybe he wasn't so good at this detective thing.

"You might be right," he said to Gus. The unmistakable metallic sound sent his hands launching upward. The icy princess had a gun. "Just finishing up a private conversation with my friend Hans Schnitzel here. Nothing to do with you," and suddenly Shawn knew, "Ms. Hayworth."

"Very good. I'm impressed. But every baddie who points a gun at you probably says that. I didn't want to be trite. But I am impressed."

Shawn took another, longer look at the gun, as if it, too, looked familiar. To most, semi-automatic handguns might have so many similarities that they seemed to be the same gun, over and over again. This one was different. Shawn knew it. A Baikal.

And, with that, pieces of the puzzle began to fall. Not into place, but just fall. More and more of them. So many. They fell like flakes in a heavy snowfall, drifting aimlessly, never ending.


	13. Chapter of Finds

**Note:** Due to a recent death in my immediate family, I was unable to finish this story by Christmas. With some deadlines to stick to and the editing an original project, time is not on my side. I hope to get back to the relaxing world of fanfic soon. I tried to fix as many errors in this chapters as I could, only I'm not really "all here" yet so I can't say it's as clean as it could be. Any cheery reviews will hearten my spirit and keep me motivated. Thanks to all, and a happy new year, too!

-x-

And thus my battle shall be ordered:  
>My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,<br>Consisting equally of horse and foot...  
>(<em>KR III<em>, V iii)

13.

He felt a little ill. A Baikal. It was too much of a coincidence. Shawn remembered a sweet and beautiful thing Lassie had said to him that morning, when they spoke of the case again, when Carlton ran finger's through Shawn's hair, when the moment was calm, almost magical. "I stopped believing in coincidences, coincidentally enough, the hour I met you."

Shawn put his arms down. She wasn't going to shoot him. She just wanted to scare him. Let him know the Hayworths were still running Santa Barbara. That didn't mean he didn't have the urge to ask if she knew any Russians, and if she'd read any of Milton Hackett's books. That deceased author's theories of a mob family in the city were more non-fiction than fiction. The Hayworths had the money, the power, the politics and the means. They could let the mafia move in. And, depending on the ethnicity of the mob, Italian, Russian, Irish—the Hayworths remained in their good graces.

But a Baikal. Shawn glanced at Gus, wondering if Gus was as bewildered. He didn't seem to be, and his arms were still raised. Shawn urged him to put his arms down.

"She's not going to shoot us. She just wants to talk."

Gus had plenty of ideas. "Talk, is that right?"

"Just a few words exchanged between business acquaintances."

"Yeah, I've seen _Goodfellas_, and I know how you people talk."

Shawn was more to the point. She liked that about Shawn Spencer.

"So, what's your name?"

"You can call me Janetta."

The allusion to _Love's Labour's Lost _was not, well, _lost _on Shawn. Jaquenetta, the country wench. Shawn's frown intensified. It pulled the emotion from his eyes, till she could no longer find the fear in him. That annoyed her.

"I don't mean to be a poor kidnap victim or anything," said Shawn, "but Gus and I were just going to spend a little time in the library, doing nice quiet research—"

"Not at all about your family," Gus interpolated, quickly nodding his head.

"And then I was going to go on to work from there. If you could just be through with your interrogation by ten-thirty—ten-forty-five at the latest, I'd really appreciate it."

She huffed, rolled her eyes, crossed her legs the other way—and slid the gun back into her handbag. "If it makes you feel better, Mr. Spencer, this isn't how I wanted to spend my morning, either."

Gus tried improving their relations. "That does make us feel better."

"You'd probably prefer your mornings filled with scheming and plotting crimes you don't really have the audacity to commit." Shawn got elbowed in the ribs. "Gus, ow, that was too hard, dude. Gentle with the ribs. I'm all sore in many places from crawling around sewer systems and—and other things that should not be mentioned in public and in front of our kidnapper."

"I'm not kidnapping you," Janetta announced. "I'm protecting you."

Shawn stared, the fluttering in his stomach beginning to rise again. Automatically, he made a grab for his phone—and out came the Ms. Hayworth's Baikal. Shawn put the phone back. His throat tightened. His eyes were heavy, and the hot emotions of fear and sadness reddened his nose, gradually expanding across his face. Holy crap, was he going to cry? Really? It seemed so absurd that he laughed.

"Gentlemen," Janetta leaned forward, her smile wide, false, "please keep your cell phones turned off until I tell you otherwise. Now is not the time for interruptions."

-x-

Upon hearing from authorities that they could enter their restaurant, Mike C. and Mike B. planned a time to meet there—with their lawyer. They wanted to see for themselves exactly what Carlton and Shawn had told them last night. Old wine and liquor locked in a secret room? It sounded like stuff that didn't transition well from silver screen to real life. If it could be true, a lawyer would act as a guardian of their rights. One of the Hayworths might come out of the stonework and claim ownership to those antiques. If it came to that, the Mikes thought that's where their lawyer would jump in, a balding, stout hero in Hugo Boss.

Two old pals stood side-by-side just inside the front entrance. It smelled horribly of smoke and charred, destroyed things. Yet what they saw before them gave them reasons to hope. It was not the black gore they'd anticipated. Sure, the kitchen, off to the left, behind the bar, was completely gone—daylight shone through the wall—the majority of the dining area, and, most preciously, the stage, were all right. Water damage from fire hoses was one beast they'd have to annihilate. The prospect was not as awful as they'd dreamed.

Mike had agreed to meet them there. The Mikes knew him as "Dobson's Mike," according to Shawn Spencer's lexicon. However, he knew himself as Michael Alwin. The trio of Mikes shared a good laugh over the first-letter A-B-C's of their surnames. The lawyer was not amused.

Mike C. floated through the tables, many of them toppled over, among a mess of chairs. He laid a kind hand upon the end of the stage, and patted it like an old friend. At the piano, Mike B. raised the lid over the keys and trilled a few chords. Even the keys were wet, but the ivories were fine, and, remarkably, every note performed with perfect pitch.

Now the lawyer was getting restless. He had other things to do, but he wasn't going to be rude about it. He'd been Mike B.'s lawyer for years, and while they weren't chummy, there was a certain amount of professional respect between them. "I think you said something about the wine in the basement?"

Duly, Alwin shuffled them into Hank's Corner. They had to pass the main doorway between the kitchen and the dining room to get to Hank's Corner, and each Mike dreaded seeing the results of the fire on the "Kissing Booth" and the venerated rubber plant, named after the dead man who'd first given the corner its name. The old saloon seemed to uphold a tradition of things with the same name over a span of decades. It was hard to know which had come first: Hank the rubber plant or Hank the man.

Hank the rubber plant was pretty burned on his left side. Mike B. felt the injury to the old friend keenly, rubbed one of Hank's leaves and promised he'd do what he could to bring him back to life. There'd been fires at the Vine before, but always around the bar, in the dining hall, once in the kitchen but it hadn't gotten very far. And those were only the fires the Mikes knew about. Who knew how many had gone unreported, or hadn't made it to the formal, legal history of the place?

The panel door to the cellar had blotches upon its exterior. It was intact, functional: Alwin put himself forward to test it. He was the strongest and could probably keep a heavy wooden door from falling on him if it happened to slide from its track. It went into the wall flawlessly. Alwin whipped out a high-beam flashlight. It produced an eerie spotlight at the bottom of the stairs.

One look at those stairs and that dark belly, the lawyer stepped back a pace and gulped. "You know what? I think I'll wait for you right here."

"We didn't expect you to come down with us, Arnie." Mike B smirked at him, and saluted prior to descending, like he was going down forever into an abyss. He wasn't. Just down some stairs.

It would've been a whole lot nicer if the lights were working, though, even Alwin conceded to that. Finding a giant hole in one wall proved easy, even in the strange, otherworldly beam of the flashlight.

"Wow," Alwin said. "I guess you can't miss it."

They couldn't. There was wall, wall, more wall, then—bam!—no wall.

The flashlight caught the limestone edges of the exit, and touched only a bit of what they supposed to be the shelf with the liquor in the hidden room. Alwin hadn't been among those that climbed in to retrieve Kalea Blane's remains, and this was the first look he had, not only of the secret room below the Vine, but of the secret room attached to the secret room—the secret-_secret _room. He and Dobson had spent several minutes last night discussing how it was possible that Kalea got into that room in the first place, or who could've put her there. No one knew about a secret-_secret _room. And those who knew about the _secret _room had already been eliminated as suspects, according to the time that the M.E. had given for Kalea's death. Alwin wasn't sure who'd voluntarily walk into a room like that, leave a body, and walk out again without confiscating a bottle or two of ninety-year-old wine. But, really, it was voluntarily walking into that room that was so creepy to Alwin, and probably even creepier while doing it with a dead body.

He lit the way for the Mikes. Evidence tags had been removed; it wasn't a crime scene anymore. He kept the light on the first of three shelves—each shelf full of bottles—while the Mikes entered slowly. They were intimidated. Alwin was glad to see they weren't dashing in there, merry and laughing. Even they were freaked out by it. Who knew how long it'd been since anyone had entered that room prior to yesterday? But once the Mikes were in, they were entranced by the lumpy shapes of liquor bottles. Lassiter and Shawn had been telling the truth.

Mike B. picked up a bottle that looked like it'd had the decades of dust smeared from its label, likely the work of one of their friends last night. The date on it almost blew his mind, and definitely toyed with his minor sense of existentialism. He could hardly fathom what the Vine would've been like in 1927, as a speakeasy, no more than he could fathom what it'd been like during the golden age of Hollywood, when stars used to come to Santa Barbara for the weekend, "dine at the Vine," as the phrase Milton Hackett had coined in his 1954 tell-all autobiography.

Gingerly, Mike B. replaced the bottle. He was afraid to touch another. But he stared. Mike C. stared. There was so much to look at. It was like a museum.

"Take some pictures," Mike instructed.

The digital camera Mike C. had brought along snapped many flash photographs. Arnie was to use the photographs in his assessment. After Arnie declared their claim, they could start processing this unburied treasure. When the Mikes had the time, and maybe with a little volunteering from Shawn, they could get the bottles cleaned up, an inventory done, and buyers located. It was a lot of work.

Mike caught a glimpse of something in the passing flashlight beam. "What's this?" he asked, more for himself than the two with him.

Mike B. gulped. "Whatever it is, Mike, just leave it there. I just don't even wanna know. This place gives me the willies. You don't suppose this is like an Egyptian treasure, do you? All cursed."

"I don't think you should worry about that," Alwin said, hoping he sounded convincing. It did get his mind going. But—no. Curses were a lot of phooey.

Retrieving the little composition notebook from its tough cranny, Mike held the delicate thing close to the light source. If it was something of Milton Hackett's, that would only add to the trove's treasures. He couldn't think about it—how he was holding an object that no one had touched in the length of a person's lifetime, maybe even before his parents were born, maybe even his grandparents. With Mike B.'s attention caught and Alwin looking on, Mike peeled the front cover from the first page. His heart pattered. There was writing in it. Writing done with a fountain pen—the ink had faded to brown. Each of them deciphered the words in swirly cursive.

Mike. C. broke into a huge laugh. Arnie could hear it all the way upstairs. Mike closed the composition book. It wasn't worth anything, just some old Vine workers having fun with the stage. "Once I get a better look at it myself," he was saying as the trio headed out of the secret-_secret _room, "I'll give it over to Shawn. Weren't he and Carlton the other day saying something about Shakespeare? They'll probably find this interesting."

-x-

Carlton was in the process of resisting the temptation to send Shawn flirty text messages. What was wrong with him? Not that there should be something wrong with a fully grown man wanting to send his fully grown significant other flirty text messages. Should there be something wrong with him? Maybe it was the moon. O'Hara and Guster were always grumbling about the phases of the moon and the influence it had on a person's energy, mindset and libido. Usually, Carlton sent text messages as a reply to one that Shawn had sent him. Carlton could really do without texting. In the last couple of years, he'd had two cases solved thanks to idiots and their addiction to SMS. Shawn, though—Shawn could make anything amusing. He didn't do a whole lot to make technology any less frightening, and it hadn't been Carlton's imagination that their month spent at Uncle Fenz's had brought Shawn as much relaxation as it had Carlton. No cell phones. No internet. No cable television. There wasn't much to do but feed the horses and fornicate. A pristine paradise, really. And almost literally. What else would Adam and Eve had done in the Garden of Eden but dry figs, make leafy kilts and fornicate? And they didn't have horses to look after. Losers.

He felt eyes on him and glanced up. It wasn't Henry—Carlton kind of feared it was, as if Henry could _tell _when someone was having Certain Thoughts about Shawn. And it wasn't the Chief, either.

It was O'Hara.

How nice to see her across the room now. He recalled what it had been like during those brief days of her honeymoon. Shawn had been driving him bonkers, more than usual, in strange and new ways that were not so unusual, and Carlton had missed her presence. He had no idea what she'd been working on all day. They hadn't talked much yet. A trip to revisit a witness for one of the cold-cases had dragged Carlton out of the station for the better part of the morning. Now back at his desk, he was supposed to be digging into Kalea Blane's past. Was he, though? No. In an effort to look occupied, lest O'Hara think he'd stumbled into a bout of laziness, he shuffled papers around to dig out the computer keyboard. He henpecked at a couple keys. O'Hara's shadow cut across his desk.

"Were you messaging with Shawn?" Her voice ranged high, like a titmouse, and squeaky, like it did when she knew the high level of her own nosiness. Her longtime field partner usually rebuffed her prying with an angry epigram.

"I never message Shawn during the day." If he did, what would they talk about when both of them were at home? He pointedly examined the file folder loosely gripped in one of her hands. "What do you have? Is it related to Waterstone?"

Juliet displayed a series of confused faces with each stubby sentence. "Kind of. Or, at least, I think it might be. But I'm not sure."

"That is the least decisive I've heard you in a long time. I reiterate: _What _do you have?"

She shot her head in the direction of the northern hall. Conference rooms, the video room and an assembly of restrooms lay that direction. Carlton gathered what he could from his desk, anything that could be pertinent, and followed her into one of the vacant conference rooms, the smallest of two—or possibly three if the video room, otherwise known as Shawn's nap room, was considered.

Juliet needed the oversized table to spread out a series of freshly-printed documents. Carlton snatched at the first one and skimmed it. Maria Monroe's death certificate. He'd already pored over the details of Monroe's death—it was a bit like Marilyn Monroe's, come to that—and he initiated a retaliation against O'Hara wasting time. She anticipated his disinterest. When Lassiter was disinterested, he emanated it like a skunk's cologne.

"Don't look at that," Juliet said, swiping the death certificate from Lassiter's loose grip. She laid it on top of Olivia Hayworth's, her eye catching the cause of death ("UNKNOWN") and tightening her frown. "I suppose it's been thought several times before, but Olivia Hayworth might not have died when they said she did. But that's all moot when you consider that I've discovered a couple of interesting facts since I started digging through the Dynasty of Hayworth. One thing," she picked up a piece of paper, "Olivia was in Australia for seven months in 1960. Well—1959 to 1960."

Australia. Carlton had heard Shawn mention Australian wines. "Wine-buying expedition, maybe?"

"At this point, it's hard to say. But, as a woman, I want to say that it's _interesting _that she should be gone exactly seven months." As she suspected, Carlton didn't get it. "Most women know they're pregnant after two months. She wasn't married. That would've been a big deal for the upstanding Hayworth clan in 1959."

Lassiter shifted uncomfortably. "You're saying she had a kid?"

"It's possible. In order to dig through all the birth records from early in 1960, in Australia, I'd have to know where to start. I don't even know what _city_ to start with. I really doubt she would've had 'Hayworth' on the birth record. That's kind of a given."

Shawn's psychicness would've come in handy right then. Shawn had the ability to look at flat, two-dimensional maps and know things. "Well, well, so the perfect Miss Hayworth had a kid. What else you got for me?"

Juliet's expression flattened as it went from excitement to sorrow. "Maria Monroe went with the perfect Miss Hayworth to Australia. And it was after that that Milton Hackett stopped writing his Santa Barbara mysteries. And the Hayworths sold their share of the restaurant. A year later, they'd removed themselves from every restaurant and business investment."

"And stuck with real estate."

O'Hara nodded. "Zip ahead a couple of decades: present day. Did you read the forensics report on Kalea Blane's car?"

"I didn't know it'd come in." Lassiter took hold of the Blane file folder and scanned the forensic findings. Included in the catalog were several receipts from a gas station in Simi Valley. The receipts stretched back five years. Lassiter unleashed his speculation aloud. "And you can't find why Kalea Blane would be driving over ninety minutes to Simi Valley once or twice a week, can you? Well, I'll tell you one idea I've got. Simi Valley is where Milton Hackett retired to, years and years ago. She might've gone to see him before he died."

"When did Hackett die?"

"Last year. I saw him at a conference before he passed away."

Juliet was brave enough to pull at that thread. "What kind of conference?"

"Mystery and thriller writers' conference."

This went above Juliet's threshold. "Carlton, stop taking work home with you! Read books _without_ dead bodies! Read about horses. Or cowboys. Or _something." _

Carlton had no fancy comeback. In his mind, he'd improved himself dramatically in the past several months. He waved off O'Hara's attempts to collect the papers across the table. "No, leave them for a minute, I want to look through them. If Kalea was still going to Simi Valley after Hackett's death, there must be someone else she was visiting. Why don't you, O'Hara, make a call to the Simi Valley Retirement Community and find out if Kalea Blane is on their visitors' list?"

Though no longer a Junior Partner, O'Hara deigned to take Lassiter's orders once in a while. Usually, they were good orders along the path of a good idea. But she would ask who else had been to see Milton Hackett prior to his death. Maybe one of the Hayworths? It was best not to limit Kalea's murderer to one of the Hayworths. They seemed to have bigger things to worry about than the old rumors and lore perpetuated by the pen of a successful mystery writer.

About to pick up the phone to make the call to Simi Valley, the phone actually rang instead. "O'Hara."

"Hello, Wife. You'll never guess where I've been," Gus said.

"Judging by the edginess in your voice, you just bought Shawn brunch at the Blue Moon Cafe."

"Not even close, although you're not far off with the brunch bit. Shawn and I did have brunch, but with _whom_ and _where_ are the most important parts. Better just let me tell you. The Hayworth mansion. With Bebe Hayworth herself."

Juliet leaned into the back of her chair. It exhausted just pondering the probabilities.

-x-

Shawn had tangled emotions. Happy that Lassie hadn't called during the two hours his phone had been forced into doze and taken from him. And slightly miffed, too, that not only had Carlton not called him but that _no one _had called him. Two hours was a long time for his phone to be inactive: no texts, no calls, nothing. It was nearly noon and, by instinct, Shawn knew that Lassie's option to sleep in had been vetoed.

"Hello, Shawn."

"You're at work, aren't you?"

"Looking at papers O'Hara brought me, yes."

"What'd the Chief do when she saw you walk in?"

"Shook her head and wagged a finger, what do you think? I told her I wanted to look into Kalea. We've made some progress."

"So have I. But I can't make sense of it yet."

"I won't ask you to. Did Mr. Scobie say something?"

"I haven't seen him yet."

"Oh. That's odd, it being your first real day of work and all."

"Yeah, I'm not at work." Shawn scanned the doors on either side of him, trying to decide which might hold Lassiter. As he'd passed by her desk, Juliet's point had been vague. He elbowed his way into one of the small conference rooms. The noise scared Carlton into turning around. Shawn ended the call. "I wanted to see you instead. I think I know why Kalea was murdered." His head bobbed to one side, weighing the conclusions. "Or one of the reasons. There could be, potentially, tens of dozens of reasons. And if someone wants to kill you, it really only takes one. A good one."

At this point in the morning, and at this intersection of cold case and new case, Carlton was not interested in motive, but more interested in _who. _"If your why can tell me who, I'll listen."

Shawn opened his mouth to squeeze in a gripping announcement before Juliet's fast feet arrived. His shoulder dropped. "Never mind. I'll let Jules tell you her news first. Looks really important," he gazed at Juliet's flushed cheeks and brightened eyes, "really, really important. Almost important enough to put my news to shame. It's shameful. Full of shame."

Juliet swallowed to soothe a dry throat. She caught her breath quickly after the sprint. Her hands shook slightly. "Kalea Blane saw Milton Hackett twice in the last month of his life. And she went once the same day and _time _as Rufus Waterstone. But they've each—separately often and once together—went to see a friend of Hackett's who is there, Boone Gesthemane. The receptionist said that Gesthemane claims he was one of Hackett's researchers."

Shawn had no idea what any of this meant. "It would've been more helpful if you'd said his name was Christopher Sly."

"Shawn," Carlton collected the papers off the table, "call Mr. Scobie and tell him your job with the SBPD is more important than cleaning stalls right now."

"Will the Chief write me a note of excuse?" But he picked out the stable's number on his phone and dialed. He guessed that they were going to see Boone Gesthemane. "Whoa, wait, Lassie. Aren't you going to bring one of Hackett's books from your collection for the boasty researcher to sign?"

Carlton managed to give Shawn an insulting look.

"Actually," Juliet speculated, "that might not be a bad idea. It might get you on his good side if he knows you're not just a cop but a fan, too."

Mr. Scobie did not answer the main line to the stables. If the boss couldn't be contacted, it wouldn't be Shawn's fault if he got fired for being late. "The horse stalls will be that much dirtier when I get there," he grumbled, aiming it at Lassie. "Anyway, what's the first thing that Jackson _always_ did when he got into a clean stable?"

"Urinate," Lassiter answered, somewhat automatically. "Reminds me, I have an interesting piece of news to tell you—about Olivia and Maria."

"Great. Does it involve horses or urinating? Because I could make some fabulous epigrammatic retorts for either story subject."

"Neither." Lassiter didn't dare glance into the Chief's office to measure her mood. If he wasn't careful, maybe take a day off soon, he'd be on the dreaded _Forced Leave_. Shawn lagged behind two paces, having spotted the tray of cookies sitting on the table in the Chief's office. Lassiter grabbed his elbow, reining him along.

"But—cookies! Chocolate ones with chocolate icing. It's a rare find. All right. Spoil my fun. I just had the überest of über brunches anyway, complete with mimosas overflowing with both mim and o-sah. No cookies, though. What about Olivia and Maria?" His phone blurted a jingle. The number was not stored, but the last four digits were familiar, a recently dialed number. "The horses must miss me. It's the stables calling."

It wasn't the horses, of course, but it was Waylon Scobie. Shawn's effort to excuse his lateness went unheeded. There was no use lying about what he planned to do, but the words "police business" carried no weight with Scobie. "If you don't get in here by two, I'll dock your pay twenty percent this week, and I'll conveniently come down with one of my arthritic attacks that leaves me incapacitated, and you'll be the one who has to clean _all _the stalls."

Shawn's rapid mind forced conclusions: 1) Scobie wasn't planning to fire his newest plebe; 2) Scobie might even like him a little; 3) Scobie liked to make threats; 4) Scobie had the moxie to enact those threats.

He hung up just as he stepped outside. It was chilly, skies cloudy in the south, dappled in the north, somewhere between opacity and transparency above his head. Sitting in the car for an hour, sitting in a retirement home for another forty to sixty minutes, that would be torture. He zipped in and pecked Carlton on the cheek.

"I gotta go to work. You don't need me for this. I have every confidence in you." He continued while Lassie dove blindly for words. "Just nose around, really get a good look at Boone Gesthemane's environment, listen to the silence between his sentences. That's where the magic is."

He could see that Carlton had no protest, but was scrutinizing him with a keen eye. Lassie never would completely notice the fullness in the emptiness, see the little things out of place, think outside limitations and boundaries and archetypes, but it wouldn't be from lack of trying. Shawn gave his hand a brief squeeze, then stepped away.

How could he learn anything or crack the case if he was frustrated by the waspish tongue of a pensioner whose best days were far, far behind him? Shawn felt he'd have better luck auguring Kalea Blane's death from the mystical whuffing of horses.


	14. Note from Shawn

Mardi 26 Mars 2013  
>Santa Barbara, CA<p>

-x-

Dear Readers,

Shawn Spencer here. I bring a message. It's with a sadness unadjusted by chocolate bars (or at least Reese's peanut butter eggs), I have to tell you that Antje is unable to finish this story.

Now, let me explain.

No, that might take to long. Let me clarify—pithily clarify—why she's unable to complete this work.

First off, she started it—what is it now?—two years ago? Well, almost two years ago. And it's still not done. That should tell you something. Not that I blame her. I mean, this is a hard story to tell and sometimes all the details can't get lined up just right, and it's enough to frustrate anyone. (Trust me, I know, I was there! I feel I kind of lost her after 'hello, dead body in sewers!' but, yeah…) But more on that later.

She's also been focusing on her own writing career. You know, the one that doesn't involve whacked-out fables of yours truly. Through her dedication to wordsmithology, during the two years it's taken her to work on this she's written, like, three original novels, several original short stories (way shorter than this thing), and has even been published - zoh mi gawd wut?! So, you see, she has a lot on her plate. Good stuff, too, not just a plate of brussels sprouts and harvard beets, either! We're talking fried catfish, coconut cream pie and … mmm. What was I saying? Oh. Right. Uh. Antje. She has a lot to do.

The most important reason for abandoning this story is Antje associating it, alas, with unpleasantness in her personal life. Christopher Sly has been in the background of her thoughts following the deaths of two members of her immediately family. (You might've seen the note about the one—then there was another after that one.) It's been hard for her to detach this incomplete tale with that time in her life. She can't be funny right now.

So I'm supposed to tell you how the story ended, only… after thinking about it, that seems like cheating. The biggest clues to figure it out, or come up with ending ideas yourself, are these: Australia, thalidomide, super-secret love-child, theater troop, old pals, old liquor, money, unrequited love.

There. That should do it.

Also, I'm supposed to mention that Antje has another Psych fanfic she'd like to work on someday, when she feels more humorous, isn't so busy, and actually writes the whole plot out so nobody, including the one giving her the ideas (me), gets confused. It has to do with internet cafes, nerdy archers (think Cosplay Robin Hoods), and may or may not (I'm not telling) be a retelling of how I ended up being twice more awesome with Lassiter than with anyone else. That, after all, is really the enjoyable part, IMHO.

Think I said it all. Thanks to those of you who stopped by and read this. There will be a "Reference List of References" as soon as I tie her to a chair (arms free, of course) and make her write it, so all those cultural bits will be explained and you can be inundated by a paucity of Wikipedia articles. She wants to wait for Saturn to go direct and some of these planets to move out of Aries! Ha! Kidding, kidding...

See you in the next story!

Peace,  
>Shawn Spencer<p> 


End file.
